Lidl British Food Week in Germany from 27 January

Lidl British food week apparently starts on January 27 (perhaps I should disable comments here).

Some readers were keen on the cheddar. This is not really really high-class mature cheddar, but it is very pleasant nevertheless. They also have ginger nuts, which are hard ginger biscuits you may want to dunk in tea or coffee to soften. The fish and chips is made with a German favourite, Seelachs – literally sea salmon, but actually coley. We used to feed the cats coley, but then before WWI my mother’s family used to feed the cats on tinned pink salmon. I think coley and pollock are getting more common in the UK now, to protect cod, but I can’t really see it as authentic. I do not know what their marmalade is like. The caramel shortcakes are a recent invention craze and I am afraid I may get some. They have baked beans too, but I have no trouble getting those here.

15 thoughts on “Lidl British Food Week in Germany from 27 January

    • I don’t know why I’ve never got used to this fish. Actually, there used to be a kind of dogfish sold at British fish and chip shops as ‘rock salmon’ but I haven’t seen it lately.
      Btw I see fish fingers made of salmon in Germany now. Maybe people who look down on fish fingers are objecting to farmed salmon and so it’s being targeted at another segment? It tastes OK.

  1. Thanks for posting this. I always enjoy stocking up on a few British goodies when it’s British week. But I do suspect my enthusiasm is due more to the lack of availability of these products in Germany, than to the actual quality of the goods.

    I see that they’ve really cut back on the range, though. No normal potato crisps, no Bakewell tarts (my guilty pleasure). But strangely, they’ve kept the frozen scampi, which I wouldn’t have considered a best seller.

    My first Brit meal will definitely be baked beans and cheddar cheese on toast!

    Ben

    • Yes, I don’t associate breaded scampi with Britain. Perhaps the Germans do. I wish they would do bacon, although I see [url]www.britishcornershop.co.uk[/url] have got some available again. The ‘breakfast bacon’ the German supermarkets offer is always wafer-thin.

    • Yes, I probably should have mentioned them. They’re so common that it didn’t strike me that they aren’t in Germany (never missed them). And I was thinking that the only cookers I ever seem in the UK are Bramleys, whereas in Germany they’re Boskoops.

      • Apparently Elstars and Cox Oranges are used as cookers as well in Germany but I seem to have a crush on Bramleys (since I had a not so nice experience with them once, not knowing about the cooking).
        One thing worth a lengthy discussion is the problem coley/pollock. I followed the outcry in British papers when someone suggested using pollock instead of cod. For the Germans (and the other continental Europeans probably) it’s a normal enough fish and I’m a bit irritated by the reactions on the very idea of eating it. I’d imagine the point is that the British are lucky being surrounded by the sea whereas in Germany (especially in the South) no sea fish was available. To prevent goitre my forefathers had to use iodised salt so they were probably happy to get any sea fish at all. And one can really eat it! It’s versatile, too (excellent in fish curry e.g.). Have a go!

        • Sorry about the anti-German remarks. I have often eaten Seelachs over here, but I don’t like it as much as cod or haddock. Perhaps I should try the ‘fish and chips’ (I think I did last time, you can heat it in the oven). I know we aren’t supposed to eat cod nowadays.

          As for Germany not being surrounded by the sea, never mind – you have the Gorch Fock! I don’t think the UK has had such a training ship since 1960, with sails. But Crossing the Line (Atlantik-Taufe) is not a German speciality…

          • You don’t have to excuse for remarks by British papers! And I can imagine that you’ve had your share of seelachs. But I thought the “historic” component (I should have written was “… and my fathers’ fathers’ fathers …”) worth mentioning (in case your British and American readers who might not know about malnourishment in German mountainous regions stumble across this comment).

            As for the Gorch Fock – oh dear.
            (And don’t mention the war!)

          • I must admit I didn’t know about the goitre or malnourishment in German mountainous regions. It still doesn’t explain why they chose pollack, although maybe it was the nearest for Germans to catch.

          • Perhaps they didn’t like it but had to eat sea fish and chose the cheapest one? Or it was the only one available, with posh fish ending up in posh cities? Or the fishing companies were selling fish that’s used as cat food in other countries to the bloody Bavarians and found it funny? Or they just liked it? One has to study the use of pollock in Schleswig-Holstein and other counties and countries bordering the sea (France?) …

  2. It would be very nice if Lidl had the British Week 2 or 3 times in the year as it is nice to buy the things that you normally cannot buy here.

    We will need to keep our fingers crossed.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.