h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After you having got us hooked on Alton Brown, we are downloading large quantities of Good Eats, and cringing largely at the Americans' inability to pronounce things like 'herbs', 'basil', 'oregano', and 'parmesan'.

One particular translation has baffled us, however. One of Alton's recipes calls for 'pastry flour', as opposed to 'all-purpose flour'.

With good old British labelling, this makes little sense. I would've thought that 'pastry flour' was self-raising flour, as opposed to 'all-purpose' being plain flour. Odo, however, maintains that it's the other way around. Who's right??

If you fancy another food-parcel swap sometime, my finances have just about recovered from moving house, so I might be able to blast some more teabags and caramel wafers off your way.

B

::AHEM::
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour#Wheat_flour

All-purpose flour is plain flour. Of course, what with this being the land of choice, three types of flour (plain, self-raising and bread) just isn't enough.

Glad to hear that you're a keen Alton fan Have I mentioned http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/GEFP/index.htm to you? Very useful for transcripts and recipes. I recently tried his cashew nut butter

I think a food swap might be prohibitive for me right now with the exchange rate as it is... and because I just shelled out a grand on a brand new sofabed. I've found a shop nearby http://phoeniciabakery.com/index.htm that sells tea - mostly bound for the Middle East judging by the strange writing on the packet, and the fact that it's a Middle-Eastern deli. The one I've settled on is Lipton Yellow Label loose tea. They also sell a number of British foods such as Marmite, Mars Bars (what the Yanks call a Mars Bar is what we call a Milky Way), Crunchie, Heinz beans, Robertson's Marmalade and even British-style bacon (made in Houston ). But no caramel wafers. And the supermarket I most often go to sells Hobnobs, Digestives, McVitie's chocolate homewheat and Walker's Scottish shortbread as well as Green and Black's. I've even seen Uncle Joe's Mint Balls on the shelf! Dammit, I was there this morning and I forgot I'd run out of G+B. They also sell Heinz beans at a considerbaly cheaper price than the other place.

If you want a couple of packs of jerky though, I could put some in a jiffy bag and mail it off. Apart from pretty good cigars, these people sell decent jerky http://www.finckcigarcompany.com/finck/brand.asp?dept%5Fid=70&brand%5Fid=3339&mscssid=P2ABP5U17SKM8HKE4KNFVL3G44DM42KE