[Disclaimer: Much of what you are about to read contains huge generalizations based on only 3+ months experience in Scotland so don’t freak out on me. Also, when I say “at home” in this post, I don’t mean to imply all American food culture is the same (after all, mine is heavily influenced by a Scottish mother). America, praise God, has many sub-cultures with distinct customs especially surrounding food. I guess I’m saying, I at least realize how WASPY this food discussion is. As to what to do about that, I’m not too sure.]

Another different between America and Scotland is Scotland’s penchant for fast food. No, not that kind of fast food. Actually, the apt term here is “ready meal” (or “easy meal) which is a high quality meal either ready to eat, or ready to eat with very little preparation.

Think American TV dinner, but of really high quality. It’s common at a dinner party, for example, to have several items be from ready meal–green beans, carrots, potatoes are most common. So rather than buying potatoes in a big bag, cutting them up, boiling them, maybe baking them for a bit to get the nice and crispy, just buy ready meal potatoes that bake for a few minutes–one step rather than three or four.

The chain Marks and Spencer was first to make a fortune with these easily cook-able treats say 30 years ago, and now every major supermarket has their own brands at different levels of quality.

I don’t have many good examples of ready meals in the house at the moment, but here’s something.

First, easy stir-fry. This isn’t the best example because Scottish food is generally packed in small packages and ready meals usually are in a different sort of box, but you get the idea. Rather than buying individual items for a stir-fry, just buy the bag and you’re set to go.

Second, potato croquettes. I love these things but they’re not cheap. Again, a potato product easily served. (By the way, it’s common to have several varieties of potatoes served at the same meal–I’m a huge potato fan so I love it!)

Finally, a selection of vegetarian read meals in the go-to rectangle box style.

It’s curious to me that ready meal style meals aren’t very common at home. Maybe we just love casseroles. A common dinner party meal here will be a meat with a variety of ready meal products on the side–mashed potatoes, carrots, roasted potatoes. At home, having a main meat is certainly also the most common practice, but then there’s often a few casseroles whereas here they aren’t quite such a staple. So “cooking” in Scotland becomes a slightly easier process.

The Thorland household’s main grocery store here, Tesco, has recently opened several stores in California. Curiously, Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury–big British grocers–have already tried and failed in the US market. Overall I’d say, the Tesco venture looks promising, especially considering the recent success of similarly-minded Trader Joe’s. And I love that Tesco sent anthropologists to live with American families for weeks to study our eating and shopping habits. That said, I’d question whoever they employed to come up with the name for their American stores: Fresh and Easy. Sounds more like a sketchy personal hygiene product than grocery store to me.

For more info on Fresh and Easy try this BBC news story, this wikipedia article, or the video top right here.