You never know what you miss until a giant crumpet passes you by

I was walking down the street in Bed-Stuy with my partner the other day when we were almost sliced in half at the crossing by a truck. Stepping back onto the pavement, I gasped and pointed at what was on its side. E, thinking I was traumatised by our recent brush with death, just nodded and said, “Yeah, yeah, I know”, but I wasn’t trying to make a point about the quality of the trucker’s driving. Instead, I was transfixed by the image speeding past me at 40mph: a large, delicious, just-at-the-point-of-the-butter-melting crumpet.

You never know exactly what you’ll miss when you leave the UK. I thought I’d crave salt and vinegar crisps (the flavour just doesn’t exist beyond British shores) or a good roast dinner – and every now and then, I do. But those gaps can be plugged with truffle fries, buffalo pretzel pieces, veggie chicken and waffles, jalapeño mac and cheese, crab and mango tacos, Korean barbecue fusion – once those become part of your repertoire, craving a couple of roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings starts feeling like pining after an ex who your friends always told you wasn’t worth it. 

Then there are the things you suddenly find are worth way more than you ever could have imagined.

A few months ago, in the midst of the lockdown, a fellow British expat brought me and my partner a care package of British foods procured from a “Britshop” in central Manhattan. In the bag was a selection of Walkers crisps, a packet of Hobnobs, some ginger nuts, some plain Digestives, ten Curly Wurlys, a pack of Penguins, a tin of Pringles and a jar of Marmite. To my own surprise, I gravitated toward the plain Digestives with fervour. As E and our other British expat friend chowed down on chocolate and salted potato snacks, I mainlined plain biscuit after plain biscuit. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. There was something so uniquely comforting about the solid taste of a humble, unadorned Digestive, the likes of which you’d never find in America. This country will give you bright pink Lady Gaga-themed Oreos and marshmallow-stuffed ice cream cakes by the dozen, but it will never give you anything as pure as a plain Digestive biscuit. God, how I’d missed that exercise in British restraint. I can’t explain why; it just spoke to me.

Since then, I’d fixated on the other singular snack the US just can’t provide: the crumpet. When I lived in the UK, a pack of crumpets was my weekend treat. I’d buy one on Friday night on my way home from work, have a couple as an evening snack and then devour the rest throughout Saturday and Sunday. The Americans have their loaded brunches, their breakfast burritos and egg-and-bacon burgers, their spicy cheese wraps and their thick pancakes fresh off the skillet, but they have not yet created something that elevates a good butter in the way a crumpet can. A crumpet is more than an odd-looking bread-like product from the UK. It’s an experience.

As we walked home, I started googling the name of the company on the side of the truck and then added it on Instagram. If there was a breakfast place in New York City selling crumpets, I wanted to be a part of it. Whether they’d tried to kill me or not was immaterial.

The thought thrummed through my mind for miles. I could see from the Instagram pictures on my phone that the crumpets were there. When I got back home, I was putting in an order for a hundred.

At home, I opened my laptop, went to the Thomas’ Breakfasts website and – my heart dropped. It wasn’t a crumpet. It was just a suggestively photographed English muffin. The dream was over. But, I suppose, it was nice to live in blissful, hopeful ignorance while it lasted.