The Ingredients You Can’t Find Anywhere In Europe: Why Americans Struggle

Not literally nowhere. You can find almost anything if you’re willing to chase import shops, specialty websites, and overpriced “American aisles.” The problem is that the ingredients Americans reach for without thinking often do not exist in Europe as normal, everyday supermarket items.

You notice this fast once you stop eating like a tourist.

An American retiree tries to cook one familiar week of meals, the kind they’ve made for 30 years, and suddenly the grocery store feels like it’s missing half the building. Not “better ingredients,” not “fresh market vibes.” Just missing.

That’s why this issue hits harder than people expect. It’s not nostalgia for junk food. It’s the loss of frictionless familiarity.

From Spain, in a Filipino Spanish household that cooks at home a lot, this is one of the most predictable pain points we see in new arrivals. They think they’re moving countries. They don’t realize they’re moving food systems.

And those systems make different assumptions about what a shopper “should” have in their pantry.

The real problem is not Europe, it’s the U.S. grocery system Americans are used to

Most Americans have never lived in a low-assortment grocery reality.

In the U.S., a typical supermarket carries an almost absurd number of products. FMI (the U.S. Food Industry Association) puts the average at 31,795 items in-store in 2024. That’s not just food. That’s a lifestyle supply chain.

In Europe, many shoppers build meals around what’s common locally, seasonal, and easy for retailers to stock at scale. Limited assortment chains are a good example of the philosophy. Lidl has explicitly described its model as keeping the range “simple and small,” around 2,000 products, compared to over 30,000 in a typical large supermarket.

Those numbers explain the emotional whiplash.

Americans are used to a store that anticipates every edge case:

• a specific baking ingredient for one holiday recipe
• a sauce packet to recreate a restaurant flavor
• a convenience shortcut that saves 20 minutes on a tired day
• a “diet version” of everything

Europe does have specialty shops, and bigger cities can be easier.

But the default supermarket is not built around American-style abundance. It’s built around flow, rotation, and local preference.

So when Americans say “You can’t find ingredients anywhere,” what they often mean is: you can’t find them without turning shopping into a project.

The ingredients that are missing because Europe regulates food differently

Some things are hard to find simply because Europe never built them into its mainstream cooking culture. Others are different because the ingredient itself is treated differently by regulators.

Europe uses a “positive list” approach for food additives, meaning additives have to be authorised and listed for use. The EU also maintains an additives database tied to Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008.

What that means in real life: certain U.S. formulation choices just don’t translate.

A few examples that tend to surprise Americans:

• Bromated flour: In the U.S., some flour and bread products use potassium bromate as a flour improver. In Europe, potassium bromate is widely described in public health and scientific literature as banned in multiple jurisdictions, including the EU, which is why you won’t find “bromated flour” as a normal retail product.
• Milk made with rBST: Recombinant bovine somatotropin (BST) is a classic example. The EU has a Council Decision (1999/879/EC) prohibiting the placing on the market and administration of bovine somatotrophin (BST). An American retiree used to shopping “rBST-free” labels often assumes the EU has the same debate. It doesn’t, because the product itself is not part of the system.
• Additive-driven convenience mixes: Some U.S. boxed mixes rely on stabilizers, conditioners, and flavor systems that just aren’t as common in European mainstream retail.

This is where Americans can get stuck in the wrong argument, like Europe is “hiding” ingredients.

Usually it’s simpler: Europe never normalized them. Or Europe normalized a different version.

The American pantry staples that exist in Europe, but not in the form Americans actually need

This is the category that causes the most frustration because it feels like it should be easy.

The ingredient exists, technically. But not in the right form, size, sweetness level, or packaging.

Here are the repeat offenders for Americans in Spain, and honestly most of Western Europe:

• Canned pumpkin puree: Pumpkins exist everywhere. The American baking staple does not. You might find it seasonally, in expat areas, or in an import shop. Most of the time you’re roasting squash and blending it yourself.
• Graham crackers: You can find biscuits. You can find digestive biscuits. But graham crackers as a dependable, everyday product are rare outside specialty stores. This matters if you bake anything remotely American.
• Self-rising flour: Flour is everywhere, but the U.S. concept of grabbing self-rising flour and trusting it for biscuits is not universal. You end up mixing your own and hoping your baking powder behaves.
• Corn syrup: In Europe, you’ll see glucose syrup, invert sugar, and other sweeteners. But the specific American baking product is often missing from normal shelves.
• “American-style” broth and condensed soups: Broth exists, yes. But that specific U.S. pantry logic, condensed soup as a cooking base, is not a default European item in the same way.

This is where Americans either adapt quickly or get bitter.

The bitterness usually comes from trying to force American recipes to work unchanged, using European products that look similar but behave differently.

A biscuit is a perfect example. The ingredients look almost the same on paper. The outcome can still be wrong because the flour, fat, and leavening assumptions are different.

That’s why the ingredient hunt becomes a proxy for a bigger identity shift. Comfort food is control. Losing it feels personal.

Dairy is where Americans get humbled fast

Europe has excellent dairy. This is not a quality problem.

It’s a category-structure problem.

Americans are used to highly specific dairy products that slot into cooking in very particular ways. Europe often uses different defaults.

The ones that trigger the most “What do you mean you don’t have it?” reactions:

• Half-and-half: In Spain, you’ll see nata for cooking, nata para montar (whipping cream), leche entera, and a lot of variations. Half-and-half as a standard product is not common. Americans who drink coffee a certain way end up trying three substitutes and still feeling annoyed.
• Buttermilk: You can find it in some places, but it’s not always a mainstream item. Europeans often use yogurt, kefir, or other sour dairy in cooking instead.
• Brick cream cheese: You can find cream cheese, but the type, texture, and fat profile varies. Baking a U.S. cheesecake can become a weird science experiment.
• Shredded cheese blends: Europeans buy blocks, wedges, slices, and specific regional cheeses. Pre-shredded “Mexican blend” or “pizza blend” exists in some supermarkets, but it’s not nearly as universal.

This is a sneaky reason Americans miss U.S. grocery stores.

They don’t miss “better food.” They miss predictable components.

And retirees notice it more because they cook at home more. Food becomes routine, and routine needs reliability.

Spice mixes, sauces, and shortcuts are where Americans feel the loss of convenience

Europe has spices. Europe has sauce culture. What it often does not have is American “meal assembly” culture.

The U.S. grocery store is full of products that take you from raw ingredients to a specific flavor identity in one step:

• taco seasoning packets
• ranch seasoning mix
• Cajun blends that taste like home
• gravy packets
• bottled sauces for every grilling mood
• canned frostings, boxed cake mixes, “just add water” everything

Europe has versions of some of these, but the range is smaller and more locally oriented.

In Spain, for example, you can buy excellent olive oil, smoked paprika, saffron, peppers, garlic, vinegars.

But the supermarket is not trying to sell you “Buffalo ranch casserole night.”

So Americans who are used to assembling meals by brand and shortcut hit a wall.

They can still cook. They just have to cook differently.

That’s why this category is emotionally loud. It’s not about taste. It’s about time.

A seasoning packet is not culinary excellence. It’s time saved on a Tuesday.

If you’re 62 and you moved for a simpler life, the last thing you want is to spend an hour recreating a flavor you used to buy for $1.29.

“You can find it in Europe” is technically true, and still not useful

This is where expat advice often becomes annoying.

Someone will say, “Just go to an American store.”

Okay, but now you’re building a life around a supply run.

In many parts of Europe, especially outside capital cities, the choices look like this:

• a local supermarket with limited assortment
• a big hypermarket that requires a car and a bigger time commitment
• one or two specialty shops, maybe, depending on the area
• online ordering, sometimes expensive, sometimes unreliable, sometimes slow

So yes, you can find things.

But you can’t find them as a normal background activity the way Americans are used to.

That’s the distinction that matters.

In Spain, the “big shop” might mean Carrefour or Alcampo if you live near one. In smaller cities it might mean a regional chain plus a market.

If you’re used to U.S. suburban convenience, where one store solves everything, Europe can feel like a constant scavenger hunt.

And that scavenger hunt can quietly erode your confidence.

Not because you’re incapable. Because the system is not optimized for your habits.

The swap list that stops the ingredient hunt from taking over your life

If you try to recreate the American pantry perfectly, you will either overspend or waste your time.

The smoother move is to build a substitution toolkit.

A few swaps that work well for Americans in Spain and nearby countries:

• For sour cream: full-fat Greek yogurt or a local crème fraîche style product when available.
• For buttermilk in baking: milk plus lemon juice or vinegar, or kefir, depending on the recipe.
• For half-and-half: cooking cream plus milk adjusted to your preference, or just accept that coffee will taste different.
• For graham crackers: digestive biscuits with a small tweak in sugar and butter ratios in crust recipes.
• For canned pumpkin: roast and blend calabaza or butternut squash, then drain it in a fine mesh sieve if it’s too wet.
• For U.S. “Mexican blend” cheese: choose one melty cheese plus one sharper cheese, and stop chasing the perfect bag.

The mental shift is the important part.

Don’t ask, “What’s the European version of my American ingredient?”

Ask, “What is the local ingredient that solves the same job?”

That mindset turns cooking from frustration into competence.

And competence is what keeps people from spiraling into “maybe we should just go home.”

A seven-day pantry reset for Americans who are tired of feeling stuck

If you’re newly in Europe, or you’ve been here six months and you’re still annoyed every time you cook, do this for one week.

Day 1: Stop chasing ten ingredients at once

Pick three missing items that cause the most friction and focus on those. Limit the hunt so it doesn’t take over your whole week.

Day 2: Choose one “base supermarket” and learn it

Familiarity matters. Learn where the staples live, which brands are reliable, and what’s consistently stocked. Routine beats variety.

Day 3: Build five local meals you can repeat

Not “European meals.” Meals you will actually eat. Pasta with tuna and tomato. Tortilla española. Lentils. Roast chicken with vegetables. Simple fish. Repeatability is freedom.

Day 4: Do one specialty run, once

Find the nearest international supermarket, expat shop, or big hypermarket, and do a single focused run for your emotional essentials. Don’t make it a weekly pilgrimage.

Day 5: Build a baking workaround list

If you bake, write down your personal substitutions so you stop re-learning the same lesson. Flour types, sugar types, leavening, butter, cream. Document your new normal.

Day 6: Upgrade your “lazy dinner” options

In the U.S., lazy dinner might be frozen meals or boxed mixes. In Europe, it might be eggs, good bread, cheese, olives, rotisserie chicken if available, or a simple soup. Give yourself a low-effort safety net.

Day 7: Decide what you will import, and what you will let go

Pick a few “worth it” imports, maybe once a month, and release the rest. The goal is not purity. The goal is emotional stability.

If you do this week honestly, the ingredient frustration tends to drop dramatically.

Not because Europe changes.

Because your expectations do.

And once food stops being a daily stressor, Europe starts feeling like a place you can actually live.