My Kingdom for some Goya Products!

You know us Puerto Ricans - our memories are made up of what and where we ate and with whom.  And yes, in that order.

If we aren't feeding people, we aren't happy.  If there isn't some family get together or someone coming over for dinner, we aren't happy.  And just like every other nationality, we absolutely love our food.  We can't wait to get our hands on our tacos and enchiladas and....

Wait..............what?!   What are you talking about Ana!?!  Tacos and enchiladas!?!? That's MEXICAN!  What have you been smoking! That's not Puerto Rican food!

Oy yeah? Try telling that to the supermarkets, where the 'Spanish' section consists of nothing but Old El Paso.   I seriously need to open up a Puerto Rican restaurant.  Oh DAAAAAaaaaad!!!! ::runs off::

Anywho, where was I?  Oh yeah.

Color me shocked when I found out Goya doesn't ship internationally.  I thought I'd be fine in the condiment/bean/guava paste/malta section, but alas...no.  They don't ship internationally.  You could literally hear the moment my heart broke.  And while I can (and have) made my own Adobo, the ingredients for Sofrito and  Sazón are really difficult to find.  So before I came I shipped myself a care package.  

The Adobo and Sazón have lasted the longest, but now I'm just left with a tiny bit Adobo. I cling to it, hoarding it like precious salt in Medieval times.  Adobo is my key to every one of my meats tasting delicious.  And how do I make my yellow rice without my Sazón with Achiote (Annatto)?  ::cry::  And I prefer achiote over saffron, so lets not go down that road, ok?

The stores here are full of Indian, Chinese and Thai ingredients.  Luckily, Indian and Thai are my two favorite kinds of food, next to mine, so...Yay for me!  But when all you can do is stare at a wall of Old El Paso for "Spanish" food, you have to learn to be creative.  Luckily, you can search through the Indian, Chinese and Thai sections for ingredients that you share.  I've found things like tamarindo (tamarind) and coconut milk, and cilantro (coriander) is very popular here.

Also, understand that you can't count on people sending you care packages.  ::stares at her friends and family::  So you have to fend for yourself and anything that DOES show up is a wonderful surprise.  But there IS a solution.  If you have set up a mail forwarding service in the States.  You can order from the Goya website in the states and have them shipped to your mail forwarding service. Most offer repacking services and will then ship it to you.  Obviously you won't be ordering perishables and frozen food, but that's not too bad.

I have, however, had some wonderful findings.  I found that there is an "International Store" in Nottingham that carries ripe plantains!  Oh man was that ever a happy moment.  And let me tell you, my honey appreciated those plantains the day I made maduros!  I even got him to learn to make them himself (not like its all that difficult and we have a deep fryer so...WIN!).  

I also found Malta (a non-alcoholic malt beverage) locally!  Its not as sweet as the Maltas in the states, but its close and it definitely hits the spot when I'm craving for one.

I've also found - to my absolute delight - that Parcha/Maracuya (Passion Fruit) is not only in abundance here, but its CHEAP!  Gone are the days where I spent $2 for EACH piece!  Now I can get 6 for less than $2!  Huzzah, I say!  Huzzah!

I'm still getting the hang of things and figuring out what I can and what I can't recreate.  There are Afro-Caribbean stores online in the UK that offer green and yellow plantains shipped to my door.   They have some other ingredients I can get as well, but things like yautia (taro root), malanga, yucca (cassava root) etc.  are just about impossible unless I grow them myself.  Luckily we have a nice back yard :)

Till Next time!

Adios!