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That’s a bit of a generalization. I’m from germany, so definitely a western culture. At the moment I have at least 10 different kinds of flour from at least five kinds of grain (including spelt, buckwheat and millet) in my cupboard. This is certainly above average, but neither of them is hard to find. They’re all from the store next door. At least buckwheat and spelt are widely available in all supermarkets, some more exotic grains like emmer or einkorn are available in most organic supermarkets.

What’s harder to get are different types of flour, some of which are fairly regional. For example “Spätzlemehl” is commonly available in the south, but generally unavailable in the north. Italian Tenero 00 flour is only available in select places. Whenever Swiss friends come visit I ask them to bring some Ruchmehl - Standard Swiss wheat flour - as it’s generally unavailable in Germany (unless you order online at your friendly local mill)

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Germany is really good about this. So is Poland in fact. But UK is like a desert of food variety. You want to buy some barley? Well, maybe the "health" isle in a supermarket will have some in 300g packets, because no one buys this stuff. Flour? Like.....white or wholemeal? That's about it. There are different brands of course but the variety is exactly zero.

And don't get me started on meat and butchers - I'm conviced that British people don't know what an actual butcher is. The biggest joke are always "butchers" in a meat isle like in Morrisons, who are only allowed to serve very specific cuts of the 4-5 meats they have on display. Try asking if you can just buy some bones for broth(sorry mate, not allowed to sell them), or the horror ask if you can buy some giblets, like chicken hearts or stomachs - nope, they never get them from "the factory". So....are you a butcher? Or a glorified cashier? And it's the same even at proper markets, where you'd think they'd have more flexibility - "nah mate, health and safety mate, can't sell you these". Just piss off.

Where in the UK do you live? I bake my own bread and have around five different types of flour in the cupboard bought from regular supermarkets, and a few more from smaller speciality shops. There's loads of variety.

I don't eat meat so I can't comment on the butcher thing.

North East.

That explains it.

Explains what how, exactly?

There are still a few proper butchers in the UK normally the ones that sell game as well.

I live in London, so I appreciate the difference, but I can get literally any food and ingredient I want walking distance from my house. Only thing is, none of it's from the supermarkets. Do you not have a local butcher or whatever around you?

There is one or two on the local high street, but my experience was the same - I tried ordering some chicken hearts, nope, they don't get them, can't order them, guy had no idea how you'd go about getting any. Ok fine - can I buy some rabbit? Or pheasant? They can bring some frozen one in for me - great, not really interested. Ok, how about like chicken carcass and beef bones to make stock out of? Nope, they don't sell those.

Ugh, sorry to hear that! You could probably order online? There's loads of food suppliers, both retail and trade, that have setup online shops recently.

Yeah, the same for trying to buy marrowbone

> I live in London, so I appreciate the difference, but I can get literally any food and ingredient I want walking distance from my house

How about chechil? I've looked high and low for that, and can't find anywhere that sells it. Oddly enough, i know one place in Oxford that does.

There's a shop in Fulham.

http://dachashop.co.uk/smoked-cheese-kosichka-soviet-standar...

I can't find soup vermicelli at the local Waitrose. Maybe it's typical Dutch/German. Not a fan of the London supermarkets

I’m curious since both you and my parent specially mentioned barley: what do you use it for? I can’t think of any common use for barley except brewing and I’ve never consciously seen it in a store (though I may have missed it since I have no use)

My grandmother used to put it in a soup with other vegetables and some meat. It really bulked out the meal and made you feel full, I always assumed it was an affordable way to feed a lot of people. More recently I've seen it appearing in salads.

My local Kurdish naan bakery makes barley naans. They're rather tasty, and a third the price of the wheat ones.

That’s interesting. Do you have an idea if that’s really pure barley? A reason barley is not a grain commonly found in bread is that barley has no gluten (the glue protein that makes bread dough stick).

Not a clue, i'm afraid! They were flat rather than fluffy, like a roti or paratha, and very dense and chewy.

Pearl barley is a common ingredient in soups - at least here in Scotland anyway.

I use it for the same meals you could use rice or pasta for it just has more "bite" than either one of those. When cooked in a vegetable broth it has a very pleasant flavour too.

Ok, thanks. That would be what’s called “graupen” in germany, rolled and polished grain. That’s fallen a bit out of favor, but I know it was once common.

Beef and/or mushroom and barley stew is a winter staple in my family. Never had trouble finding barley in the store.

I have vegetarian friends who use it all sorts of places that I might have used oats, lentils or rice.

Of course...brewing would be the finest use of it. :-)

> what do you use it for?

Boil and eat it? Certainly good with heavier, fatter pieces of meat.

Toss a handful into the next soup you make. It's got good texture, and goes well with nearly anything.

Go to an actual butchers, and you'll be fine. But yeah, in other countries the one in the supermarket will probably do it all too.

>>Go to an actual butchers, and you'll be fine

The thing is, I've lived here for 10 years and I haven't been able to find "an actual butcher" yet. Every single place that looks like an actual butcher shop ends up being just a meat store, where the meats are prepared and packaged elsewhere, and the people in the store just sell it. At best, they will have a large chunk of say pork loin, and they can cut a bit off for you.

It's not hard to find an actual butcher in London, but that may just be a metropolitan liberal elite bubble :p Agreed that the butchers in supermarkets, and even in many "butcher shops" are basically just cosplaying at butchery.

Very much this. Not in the UK (US here), but there's been a bit of a resurgence in butchery as a profession. So, this leaves me in the rather nice position of having not one but two 'real' (USDA inspected) butchers close by, but many butchers these days will also ship.

My subjective experience is the quality ranges from "noticeably better" to "OMFG how have I never had something this good before better" than the supermarket offering, though clearly at a higher price point.

> Flour? Like.....white or wholemeal? That's about it. There are different brands of course but the variety is exactly zero.

That's a slight exaggeration. My local large supermarket in London would have in normal times (i.e. a few months ago) in the baking aisle: several brands of white and wholemeal flour as mentioned, 00-grade pizza flour, self-raising and strong bread flour, malted and cake flour, rye flour, and a gluten-free flour-like substance. Elsewhere in the shop you'll likely find rice flour, chickpea flour etc.

There is also a healthfood shop where it's actively hard to find the (Shipton Mill and Doves Farm organic) wheat flours among the profusion of Spelt, Barley, Kamut, etc flours)

Barley, 500g bag, 55p [1].

Some sort of Polish flour [2].

Butchers aren't allowed to sell beef bones, due to the 1990s BSE crisis, but the others are no problem. They may well not stock them, especially in a supermarket, where they are somewhere between a glorified cashier and an actual butcher. You would need to build a relationship with a local butcher to make your unusual requests worthwhile -- it might mean he orders them, or that while preparing the meat he doesn't throw them in the bin (at which point, they can't be sold).

> "Nah mate, health and safety mate, can't sell you these"

This is modern British English for "I don't want to" or "it's not worth my time" or "go away, you are complicated". It's rarely an actual rule.

[1] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/256538041

[2] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/275505155

I'm currently living in Switzerland and I was going to post something along these lines.

That being said, in the US there are also plenty of interesting grains/lentils/legumes available in stores thanks in part to inherited culinary traditions: cornmeal, corn masa, wild rice, couscous, black beans, pinto beans, various types of quinoa, various types of lentils, etc.

Spelt seems less common there but there isn't a tradition of cultivation of it so that makes sense. I do think the bean selection here in Switzerland is lower than I would prefer, but a few specialty stores mitigate that.

Is Germany truly considered to carry “Western culture” within the English-speaking world?

“Western culture” to me, when mentioned by the English-speaking world, has really just meant the shared ideals of the metropolitan parts of English-first first world countries (that’s a mouthful).

This would include major cities in countries like the UK, USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand but would also exclude their rural areas.

Not that I agree or disagree with it or that I’m trying to make a political statement - it’s just an observation I’ve found.

The terms Western, Eastern, and Third world stem from the Cold War. Western countries sided with USA and adopted capitalism, where Eastern countries sided with Russia and mostly adopted communism. The Third World countries didn't take a side.

This is why Germany is considered Western.

Which is why Australia is part of the Western world, even though it's part of the eastern world (note the case).

As a Brit, i absolutely consider Germany western. I'd say unambiguous westernness in Europe stretches about as far as the Czech Republic.

> Is Germany truly considered to carry “Western culture” within the English-speaking world?

apart from the political explanation there are also the philosophical roots of Greece as the birthplace of Western civilization. A country that builds on this can be part of the Western World. The books in this category give you a better picture of what belongs. Needless to say the English language or Anglo-Saxon culture is not a yardstick as to what belongs here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_Wor...

The word for what you describe is "Anglosphere" or similar.

I can say moving from Sydney to Amsterdam, there does seem to be a lot more variety of grains at the average supermarket. Especially buckwheat, spelt and rye.

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