what ingrediants do you really wish your town would carry?

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ncage1974

Senior Cook
Joined
Jul 17, 2006
Messages
265
Location
Central IL
What are those ingrediants which you so much wish that you had access to but alas your town does not have. Im sure all of us have seen some of those ingrediants on the food network and hoped we had access to them.

Luckily where i live i have access to a lot of things. I live in a town of about 200,000. Happily im on the outskirts and not in the middle of town so i have a combination of accessbility to what a city offers but country living which i prefer. Anyways here is my list:

1) Charred Tomatoes: I would live3 to be able to get the fire roasted tomatoes in a can. I have to now do this on my own my broiling roma tomatoes i buy at the store but it would be so convienet if i could get them in the can.

2) Brined Green Peppercorns

3) Andouille Sausage: Once in awhile you will i have found this as Sams Club but usually they don't have it. I have not seen it for a year in fact. We have this store around here called snukes and they do have what they call to be Andouille but its really cajun spiced brautworst that they call Andouille. It taste nothing like it though.

4) Other Sausage: wide variety of other sausages like for example spanish corizo (i can find mexican).

3) Tasso Ham

4) Sliced Cherry Peppers - actually quite hard to find and expensive when you do. Thats why this year im going to grow them in my garden and brine them myself.

5) Half way descent priced herbs. If your going to make pesto out of any herb but cilantro (which i love) or parsely then good luck. They sell these little packages of herbs for $2.50 which it would probably take 100 of them to make a good batch of pesto.

6) Heirloom tomatoes - Even the garden side stands tomatoes taste no better than store bought. That is why i grow my own.

7) Greek Yogurt

8) Tri-TIP: seems like no place in town ever has had this but i would like to try it. Thank god i can get brisket (one of my favorite things).

9) Exotic Mushrooms: i can find White Button, Shitake, Portabello, Cramini, Oyester, and Porcini (even though they are hard to find). I wish i could find chantrels, lobster,straw, Truffels (which i consider to be like a mushroom). Oh yea i can find morals but they are very very expensive. Like $10 for just a few that look to be about the size of pebbles.


Fortunatly we have an asian grocer store where i can find just about any exotic ingrediant on that side of the planet you can think of.

I do wish we had a descent mexican grocer though. I have to hit the ethnic isle in meijers. Like for example if you try to buy dried chipotle peppers you will be paying like $6 for 4. Good thing i liked chipotle in adobe better. Oh yes almost forgot a nice cheese shop would be nice.

Ncage
 
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Oh...shut up!

We moved to where we are after 30 years in Washington, D.C.

Okay, now, we live in a very rural area of America's heartland. Our little city has about 900 citizens. The nearest town of any size (about 40,000) is 30 miles away.

I yearn for some of the things we took for granted before we moved here. As a result, I've gotten VERY creative with some of my recipes. All eight items on your list are not available here, with the exception of number 5. Our herbs are even more expensive in the market. Thankfully I grow my own.

Some of the ingredients I actually use confound the area citizenry. I've even introduced ripe olives to folks here.

Now that I've painted a grim picture of where I live, I have to honestly say that it's the best place I've ever lived and will do what is necessary to accommodate solutions for those things that are missing from the market.
 
ncage, if Greek yoghurt is unavailable in your area, you can use normal yoghurt and then strain it, that is, if you are using it for dips.

What I would like for the grocery stores and supermarkets here to stock up are sundried tomatoes in oil, dried cranberries, pecans, all types of tofu, sweet turnips, tapioca (cassava) among other things. For sundried tomatoes, I guess I could do them myself later once I start growing my own tomatoes in our new home. I once tried to sun-dry cherries, but alas the weather was not hot enough (I needed 3 hot days at least) and as a result I had to dump the moulded cherries!!
 
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