I don’t think you should worry about what you’re carrying if it “makes sense” ie isn’t way over the top for your personal use…
Just don’t include anything on the Prohibited list… then it won’t matter if you get checked or not.
best of luck.
I don’t think you should worry about what you’re carrying if it “makes sense” ie isn’t way over the top for your personal use…
Just don’t include anything on the Prohibited list… then it won’t matter if you get checked or not.
best of luck.
Regarding importing from UK to France, all official regulations are outlined here, handily in English:
Enforcement of the regulations by all accounts may vary but you can ask yourself “Do I feel lucky?”
For anyone that chooses to ignore or risk entry on the down low, like any other gamble, just be willing to lose the goods and pay the penalty.
Such delicious food in Lebanon and amazing produce, I saw the most enormous cabbage I’ve ever seen in Shtoura. The year I spent next door in Damascus was epic food wise.
… And wot’s rong wiv dat?
They should let me know in advance so I can sell tickets…
I think you’re making three separate and possibly very different points , but I’ll only respond to two of them in this post!
One is personal nostalgia about loss of childhood or whatever, whereas the other is a common evocative trope of shared cultural space/place, culture and exile. The first is local / personal:individual, whereas the second is common to many diaspora cultures .
Firstly there’s the food of childhood; when I wrote my mother’s funeral eulogy I made mention of the things we ate together in the Fifties and Sixties (most of which I wouldn’t want to eat today, but which remain emotionally resonant).
But, more important perhaps is the food of exile, which sustains many diaspora communities around the world (and i wasn’t really thinking of cricket playing Brits in the Dordogne - tho’ I’m sure they’re very nice people).
However, I live in France and have no desire to recreate the tastes of other countries where I’ve lived, whether it be a steak and kidney pie or bobotie (tho might kill for a bowl of Boston clam chowder even tho’ the best I ever had was in a pub on the south shore of Galway Bay).
Tu veux ma photo?
I expect that for many, like the OP, the areas are linked. Some grew up on the fry-up and it’s an everyday part of life, Walls sausages and all.
I mentioned poverty-food because things like those sausages likely have their origins in use of the despicable bits, along with lots of rusk and filler to bulk out what little protein there was even further. You’ve considered your food very consciously and have a quite intentional approach, but not everyone works that way, and may just feel a need for ‘proper’ - exile as you say - food with all those familiar tastes and sensations.
FWIW when I finally get a kitchen I know our French friends will be expecting ‘English’ specialties like curry and snake & pygmy pie.
In my experience recently, they are not.
Don’t do it , I know several Brits who’ve made that curry mistake - I think the French generally dislike spicy food, unless it’s from a former colony -couscous and merguez is OK, curry best avoided!
Have I got it already or is this an avatar?

my wife and her family love spicy food , its me that doesn’t!
I’m not a hotter-the-better type, and especially since they didn’t feed me anything weird a couple of weeks back, I’d only cook them something that would be enjoyable to them. Probably wouldn’t do curry as a first offering anyway, though might do satay IF they like the idea, but we’ll see what hopes and expectations are and work to those. They did ask what the English national dish was last time we were there. 
If it was me, I’d probably do a shoulder of lamb, if you can get decent local lamb. Otherwise go to a good local butcher and ask his advice - choosing local and the best quality will go down well with the French
And so it should!
One neighbour was very partial to sausage-toad. I couldn’t persuade him to join us, but he was pleased to receive a plated meal… and a bottle…

When the time comes I’m not sure what I’ll do. It needs to be something I would naturally cook, but guided by local ingredients, rather than trying to take on local cooking that I haven’t got to grips with yet. Roasts aren’t really a part of our diet any more and haven’t been for decades, other than at Christmas to feed an extended family.
But thanks for the suggestion. 
Accompany the meat with really fresh seasonal veg rather than exotiques - it shows you understand how French people eat
If one can I’d also offer good pain au levain from a local artisanal boulangerie, and no more than three cheeses one english, if it’s any good; but probably easier to get from a fromagier, a blue -Rocquefort’s the best and the easiest , a cows cheese - but should be lait cru and a chevre or a brébis (goat or sheep’s cheese.)
Saute de veau is easy and fairly quick, or roast a poulet/or a pintade, or do it in a casserole
Forty years ago maybe but not my experience of fifty to sixty years ago. My grandparents owned a grocery/supply store before the age of the supermarket and were agents for Walls.
They had a large icecream fridge just inside the shop door stocked with Walls icecream, real icecream and delicious as were the Walls sausages they sold which my grandmother would serve up with local bacon and wonderful fried eggs from the free range hens that wandered the shops back yard and rummaged in the compost heap of vegetables that grandad wouldn’t sell if they weren’t at their best.
I go back even further and can confirm… it was a very different world…
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