Is This Meat Still Good?
"Yes, it smells like meat, Traci" is the phrase Nick has uttered many times since moving here.
"Are you sure? I don't know. It expires tomorrow, but maybe I shouldn't trust that," I frequently reply.
"Yes, it's fine. It smells like beef (or fish or pork or lamb)," he casually tells me.
And here we are six months later and the meat has always been fine. (Knock on wood.) In all seriousness though, it smells different to me, mostly because of the way it is packaged I think. In the States, unless you get meat straight from the meat counter, it almost always has the moisture absorbing sheet at the bottom of the package. They don't do that here. Occasionally there is a piece of parchment paper, but not usually. I think that alone makes the meat smell meatier, at least that's what my hypothesis is.
So, that's the first difference - no moisture absorption in the packages, which is actually nice because one time in Colorado I accidentally boiled one of those with my chicken when I was making broth and ruined a whole batch.
Difference number two: don't expect your chicken to be fully clean. By clean I mean, you will more than likely find a feather or remnants of them on the chicken skin. I have also noticed that if I get a pork loin with the fat still on it, there will still be some hair on there. Does this weird me out? Yes, absolutely.
Difference number three: eggs are not refrigerated. I'm sure most of you know this about European countries already. In the UK, if your eggs have a red lion stamp on them it means they are British Lion eggs. This indicates that the hens have been vaccinated against salmonella and there are strict food safety controls in place throughout the entire production. Basically, these eggs are safe for everyone to eat, even raw.
Oh, and expect to find feathers stuck to the eggs when you open the carton.
Okay, that's all I know about meat so far. I will say that I expected to have a plethora of options of seafood since we are living on an island in the North Atlantic, but it's been a letdown. Well, unless you count fish and chips.
