Taste the difference

I spent the morning with a couple of my Karen friends.  First we took the now-familiar routes to the DSS office and the refugee support office, where we sought answers to some questions.  Then they suggested a trip to the Asian supermarket.  "No problem," I said, "Can you direct me?"

They laughed.  "Not know the way!  Not know the street! It not far from here..."

A call to a relative revealed that the street was Central Avenue, which was actually very far from there - but no matter.  We took a drive and came to an emporium of Asian edibles.  Half an hour later my friends loaded up the car with delicacies - vacuum-packed anchovies and chicken hearts and such - which should keep them going for a while.  I'm not a huge fan of Burma's cuisine (towards the end of my six-month stint there I rather lost the will to eat anything, and came home thin as a stick).  My Karen friends are equally resistant to the American diet - they can't think of anything less appetising than pizza (cheese, ugh) and cannot understand why they are always being offered cookies, when a plateful of rice with fermented fish sauce is so much tastier.

Meanwhile next week our family will be attending an International Food Festival at the Girl's school, and we have to take along a British treat.  As I'm not prepared to waste our precious and dwindling supply of Marmite, we're thinking chips [fries] with salt 'n' vinegar.  Wrapped in newspaper, of course.  Or do any of you have a better suggestion?