A Question for my Irish Readers...

[ecosophia]

...and those in England as well, come to think of it. The not particularly "super" supermarket (submarket?) where I shop has an ethnic foods aisle which, unlike many members of the same species, isn't primarily a place for whitebread Americans to sample exotic (to them) foodstuffs. It's a place for immigrants or members of ethnic subcultures to buy familiar foods that you mostly can't get in US stores. Up to now it's been pretty much what you'd expect: a very good selection of Portuguese foods (plenty of families in this part of New England came from Portuguese-speaking countries, and East Providence in particular has a lot of Cape Verdeans and Azoreans), an even bigger selection of Mexican foods, some foods from other Hispanic countries, a decent collection of Japanese and Korean foods, a decent collection of Indian-subcontinent foods, and a Jewish section with some of the classic Jewish foods. 

The store just rearranged its shelves, and there's a new section in the ethnic foods aisle. Batchelors' canned beans and mushy peas, Marmite, Barry's Irish tea, McVities' Digestive Biscuits. Devonshire cream custard. 

Yeah. Irish and, to a lesser extent, English food. 

Do any of you happen to know if there's some kind of quiet exodus from Ireland and, possibly, England as well to Rhode Island -- and if so, why? 

Comments

Just on my way back from Ireland

[seanbolger1]

I'm on the ferry, just about to arrive in hollyhead. I was visiting my parents for the week in connamara.
To answer your question
I think it's the strong dollar and brexit. Its become harder and more expensive to export to England.The us dollar has risen significantly and it now makes economic sense to ship more stuff across the Atlantic plus people in Europe and the UK are switching to generic supermarket budget brands because prices have been rising so much.
Kind regards
Sean

[(Anonymous)]

I can't vouch for Rhode Island per se, but, if you're taking nearby morphological comparisons, Manhattan has been suddenly overrun with British, French, and German expats. The fall isn't the usual time for their well-heeled migration across the pond. So many brought along kids to incarcerate in all the better private schools on the island that I don't think this is just a temporary aberration.

This is the first year that I noticed German families parading around Central Park with lanterns and brass bands to celebrate St. Matin's Day. There were multiple little parades, each with their own brass bands and tons of toddlers. This has the feel of a noticeable number of wealthy Europeans heading for the exits.

Manhattan already had a few specialty shops for bangers and mash and whatnot. So far I haven't noticed any changes in any of my local supermarkets though.

— Christophe

[(Anonymous)]

There have always been Irish immigrants in the Outer Boroughs, and if you know where to go, Irish brands. So, I don't think that Irish immigration is particularly noteworthy, in the sense that it's never really stopped.

[ecosophia]

But until a few months ago we didn't have Irish products for sale in stores here in the outer boroughs of Rhode Island. Now we do. That's an interesting change, and the reason why I'm posing the question.

[(Anonymous)]

I suspect the mostly likely answer to your question is simple supply shortages. They're trying to keep the shelves filled with whatever they can get. If Irish products are available and the usual stuff is not, then that is what you will see. The food coop I go to often carries ethnic foods of various sorts though not being an ethnic foodie I wouldn't notice any new Irish products if they came up and nibbled on my tuchus. There is an Irish brand of butter in the butter section but that has been a regular item all along.

It's been nearly a year or more since I've seen the 3 ounce Dixie paper cups I used to use in the bathroom. 'Labor shortages' is the explanation I have seen on the Dixie website. So I've gone back to using a regular plastic cup which I wash and reuse. It's very likely we will see more and more of this sort of thing as time goes on. At some point on the Dixie website the blurb will go from 'labor shortages' to 'sorry, we're done.' We will have to make do with what's on hand rather than rely on the cornucopia which has been flowing in from every point of the compass in past years. Alas.

JLfromNH/Gambage Pretentious Ogre

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe you're seeing the start of whoever can leave Europe, doing so? It's a little scary to think of NewYorkifornia as a safe haven, but I guess, here we are.

That would partially explain the rise in demand of Irish/Anglo foods but why not German or Italian or French? I bet the people who emigrate first have some family or relatives to go to, there probably was a previous Irish immigration wave to Rhode Island, I'm guessing. I bet if this theory holds up, Texas is seeing a lot of Germans (along with everyone else, so it may be hard to pick them out) right about now.

The French would probably all go to Montreal and the Italians would go to Boston or Manhattan?

[(Anonymous)]

Hypothesis: I know an unusually high number of Canadians have recently gone to the US. (I am one of them, but I am not in RI.) Many of us love Irish/English food. In Ontario the tea, custard, and biscuits you mentioned aren't in the ethnic food section. They are in the regular tea and desert and cookie sections. Maybe your new foods are for the Canadians.

Heloise

[(Anonymous)]

Experiment: Go to Detroit and look at the grocery store shelves there. Canuckistan is right across the bridge and there's a lot of back and forth going on up there. Note the differences in the ethnic food aisle.

[hearthspirit]

I'd bet dollars to doughnuts Eloise is from Ontario?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/443066/number-of-emigrants-from-canada/

Maybe BC, but the fact you say you know they went to the US rather than elsewhere suggests to me Ontario. Iin BC) don't know anyone who emigrated to the US recently, only those who married in awhile ago, but lots home to "developing" or other commonwealth countries where conditions they originally left are now better and cost of living cheaper. The immigration flow from the US and UK is higher, all due to marriage.

Overall, according to the data, the number of Canadian emigrants has gone down, even as our population has increased - the increase to nearly as many as ten years ago is probably due to the same economic forces - Ontarians are, in my experience, more likely to be dual citizens and able to rejoin extended family or have a cultural "home" elsewhere to go to, and so have the lighter tie to having to stay where their whole world is, like the central provinces.


Ontario was also heavily settled by Irish Protestants, intentionally as a bulwark against the double threat to English rule of the French in Quebec, and the Metis and indigenous tribes on the western frontier, who had kinship and cultural ties with each other (and the Irish and other Catholic immigrants in the South.)

So the overall number of Irish as a percentage of population will only be going down in Ontario (I know my Orangemen ancestors miscegenated and defected west ;-)), by any metric. If the same change is seen on our shelves, it isn't that the people moved, it's that the food got reclassified.

The only store I have ever seen ethnic UK foods is in the one that is nearly dedicated to ethic foods (with primarily Asian staff), and only in the labelled aisle by country. Unlabeled ethnic food there is essentially American or Canadian sourced. I'll look for Irish food in addition to the British, now!

[hearthspirit]

Oh, no Irish. But the IRN BRU (Scottish) was in the British section. Don't tell Nicola...

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting. Certainly marmite, custard, and digestive biscuits are vital English foods. My brother and his family moved to Rhode Island some years ago and love the lifestyle it affords I think housing is a particular issue in both the UK and Ireland. Houses have become ludicrously expensive in the south of England (and I hear in the Republic of Ireland) meaning it is increasingly difficult particularly for families to buy a house.

[(Anonymous)]

HI John,

From what I can tell personally, Irish emigration has not jumped up by any noticable degree. Having come from rural Ireland, I now live in a large town, the surrounding countryside to this is dotted with small villages which would normally be prime emigration country.

Usually these places have a doughnut-shaped demographic make-up where people between the ages of 19 and 35 have left for better opportunities.

Recently, my wife was in one of these villages and she found the pub teeming with younger local people. Asking the barman if there was an event or wedding on, the barman replied no and that some young people are bucking the generations old trend of feeling they have to get out to 'make-something-of-themselves'.

I took this as very encouraging news for rural Ireland and maybe a sign of a younger generation choosing to make the best their communities.

By the way, Batchelor's beans are delicious except for the curry flavour which tastes so like botulism that I don't think they would have eaten it on the Franklin expeidtion if it was on the menu.

It looks like good food...

[(Anonymous)]

(no text)

definitely changes in immigration

[(Anonymous)]

Not exclusively English/Irish, but definitely immigration is changing and the groceries are noticing.

I'm in Western CT, and our local ShopRite (the comprehensive but budget-conscious grocer in my neighborhood) recently rearranged its ethnic food aisle to have an Eastern European section. Lots of sour cherry products, bottled mineral water with Hungarian/Polish/Russian/Ukrainian names, biscuits and pickled foods all with eastern Euro brands.

There is already a Polish grocer one block away and a "Made In USSR" grocery within a mile radius (yes, Made In USSR is the actual name of the shop.) This immigration wave started a few years ago but has definitely intensified.

--Ms. Krieger

PS Come to think of it, I did see Marmite in that same aisle last time I was there!

[(Anonymous)]

In California the Irish have got a major hold on the imported organic Butter market - even closing in on New Zealand dairy.

If Irish agriculture marketing is smart then in a market with a strong dollar they will start exporting British food. If they are really smart then they can focus on the premium and mid market.

[(Anonymous)]

"If Irish agriculture marketing is smart then in a market with a strong dollar they will start exporting British food."

LOL don't you mind Irish food?

[(Anonymous)]

From Ireland, not that I've come across. Seems to be about normal levels of emigration other than maybe more eastern Europeans going home to escape our farcical rental market.

Dot.

[(Anonymous)]

In my corner of South America, I have gained a pair of neighbors who have moved in from the US. One neighbor is a returnee couple with kids, and the other neighbor is a couple with kids with one half being a returnee, and the distaff a US veteran.

No Europeans seen as of late, I have yet to check out the local town where the backpackers and Euros hang out.

Nothing to notice in the imported food section except for increased prices due to the exchange rate.

[(Anonymous)]

I’d like to know who orders “ethnic,” or whatever the term du jour is, foods for chain stores. If I had such a job, I’d start by perusing a cookbook for the cuisine and stocking the allotted shelves with basic ingredients of the cuisine, things you need to make most or all of the cuisine’s dishes.

So why have I NEVER been able to buy instant Japanese dashi, or ingredients to make dashi, at the chain store? Several different brands of short-grain sushi rice, but no dashi. This is like stocking the American isle with pork chops but failing to carry salt.

Harrumph,

—Pemmican Princess Cutekitten

[(Anonymous)]

I'm in Dublin, I haven't noticed a huge increase in emigration, but a lot of young people leave to work abroad for a few years at least. The housing crisis is really bad here, the rents are mental. I've only heard of one person who moved to the US in the last decade, and he only moved because he married an American. Most young people move to Australia, Canada or Dubai.

A Canadian hypothesis

[(Anonymous)]

I have no current information on immigration levels, unfortunately.

However I have an anecdote: when I was trying to source large amounts of dry beans (you know, beans and rice for the bunker) earlier in the year, I was trying to get local organic ones, which I did find, thankfully. During my research, I found that much of Ontario's bean production goes to Ireland+UK's canned baked beans!

Not sure where your store's canned beans are canned, but if they were canned in the Islands, then that means they had one very long voyage before getting on your store shelves. I presume that they're not sold in RI for the pre-shortages 2020 price of 35 euro cent per can! That was an insanely low price, not least because Mason jar snap lids are at least 30c CAD per unit!

Poseidon

[(Anonymous)]

No there hasn't been an exodus from Ireland lately. In fact, there is an exodus TO Ireland and there has recently been unrest due to immigrants being given free housing in a working class area "East Wall" where many Irish struggle to find any affordable accommodation.

I'm Irish and there has been huge immigration to Ireland in recent years by both Irish returning home and vast numbers of EU immigrants, mainly Eastern European. More recently there has been a lot of African and middle Eastern young men arriving in Ireland via the UK. They are given free housing and food and can work too so they basically have a better lifestyle than the natives. My brother works in the civil service and processes these "New Irish". A lot of them have criminal records and they are clearly economic migrants but he is told to give them leave to remain as politicians are terrified that they might be called racist otherwise. He said they have to be murderers to be denied the right to become Irish citizens.

As JMG mentioned, this is just the start of a huge exodus from Africa and the Middle East into Europe and I really believe that Irish people will eventually be a minority in their own country. English people are already a minority in the biggest English cities but you could argue their former Imperial subjects are just returning the favour. Ireland however was colonised, not the coloniser.

So are the Irish fleeing to RI? Not that I know of. It is not that easy for Irish people to legally settle in the US now anyway.

Batchelors' canned beans and mushy peas, Barry's Irish tea = Irish
McVities' Digestive Biscuits. Devonshire cream custard. Marmite = English

[(Anonymous)]

The best person to ask is probably the store manager; they can tell you whether this was their response to local demand or a changed store layout that came down from corporate.