informative and entertaining guide to switzerland  on the internet sarah here today and in today's  

video i'm going to be sharing with you  some things that you can buy in switzerland

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things that you cannot buy in switzerland now  when i go through this list i know everyone's  

going to tell me you can you can buy those things  um and that very well may be true but this is just  

my personal experience as an american living  in switzerland these are the things i really  

do not find very easily maybe there's some online  websites or some places you can order these things  

but these are common items for me growing  up in the us like quite normal things that  

you would find pretty much everywhere  that are either impossible to find or  

a little bit difficult to find or just more rare  in switzerland so the first category is baking  

items so i like to bake obviously a lot of my  favorite things that i ate growing up in america  

like peanut butter cookies or chocolate chip  cookies different kind of cakes or whatever and  

i often run into the problem that recipes call for  brown sugar okay and i cannot find brown sugar in  

switzerland now if you ask a swiss person um do  you have brown sugar if you go into the grocery  

store and you ask where is the brown sugar you ask  you know about this it's just people will tell you  

usually in my experience that you can find brown  sugar in switzerland but this is a little bit of  

like a cultural clash because if you ask a swiss  person about brown sugar they will refer you to  

this sugar that you can find in switzerland  that's called sukur rotsukur which is basically  

sugar in the raw um in that we have in the u.s  so it is brown in color but it is not the brown  

sugar that a lot of recipes call for so american  brown sugar if you're swiss watching and you've  

never heard of it it looks like this and so it  looks quite similar to brown sugar you find in  

switzerland but it's actually just regular sugar  with mixed with some sort of molasses and so this  

american style brown sugar you can really pack  into a ball it's very strange it has a very  

um strong flavor stronger than regular sugar so  you need it for a lot of recipes but you can make  

it on your own with regular sugar and molasses but  anyways that's for another video so i managed to  

get around without it but this is definitely one  of the things on my must-buy list whenever i go  

back to the us i'm always bringing back some brown  sugar also when it comes to baking i find that in  

switzerland it is a lot harder to find seasonal uh  baking decorations so for example over christmas i  

was making sugar cookie cutout cookies you know  that you cut out frost and then put you know  

themed sprinkles on top or whatever so for  christmas i was looking for some uh you know red  

and green and trees and whatever kind of shaped  sprinkles that you would find very easily in any  

walmart in the us or whatever in the us they go  really crazy with seasonal stuff as soon as it's  

spring they'll you know have tons of seasonal  cake mixes cookie mixes decorations everything  

for every little season um but in switzerland  they of course do have some seasonal decorations  

but i find it a lot more tricky to find um you  know like the the red and green sprinkles for  

christmas that's what i was looking for mainly  and i couldn't find it so it's one of those things  

that i added to my usa shopping list okay so the  second category is a really really big one you  

guys and i'm just gonna group it together and then  go over it these are food items that i used to eat  

commonly um in the united states but i cannot find  them in switzerland and i'm not sure why on a few  

of them so the first one i'm going to talk about  because it's been kind of bothering me lately is  

corn on the cob so this is the kind of corn on  the cob that i can find around here i cannot find  

corn on the cob um that i'm used to as an american  so growing up um corn on the cob that we ate was  

a full it's called a husk a full thing of  corn in the in the husk in the green part all  

of that you buy it like you know like that and  usually they were like i don't know six or ten  

for one or two us dollars very very cheap corn  again i don't know if that's because it's gmo or  

it's horrible or whatever but it was very easy to  find corn on the cob um sold like that whereas in  

switzerland i swear i've been to every grocery  store close to my house looking for corn on the  

cob because it's grill season now we've got our  grill out i love grilling corn on the cob and all  

i can find is this vacuum sealed corn which is  actually super expensive i think i paid almost  

three dollars three swiss francs three us dollars  for this tiny pack of two vacuum sealed corns um  

yeah they're all right you know i mean you can eat  them but you cannot compare it to me to the corn  

um that i ate in the u.s that was fresh so  actually this one please let me know down below  

if you can buy these anywhere um because i've  checked cope negro dinner everywhere cannot find  

fresh corn on the cob sweet corn another item  that i'm not really sure why i cannot find it  

is grape jelly so there's all sorts of jams and  jellies of course in our local supermarket but for  

some reason i cannot find grape flavor you have  raspberry strawberry all sorts of other things  

but i can't seem to find grape and grape is my  favorite i love grape jelly with peanut butter  

on a sandwich so good so the next one's kind of  funny there are a lot of things you cannot buy  

in switzerland that internationally are labeled  as swiss so for foods that would be a swiss miss  

hot cocoa you cannot find that in switzerland  definitely not which is actually funny because  

i think it's made by nestle which is a swiss  brand but you will not find swiss miss in a  

swiss grocery store they have all sorts of hot  chocolate that is way better than swiss miss  

but you cannot find swiss miss or swiss cake  rolls another very popular food in the us you  

will not find swiss cake rolls in a swiss grocery  store i've also never seen graham crackers okay so  

graham crackers are important if you want to  make s'mores they are essential they are the  

the bread of the s'more sandwich and i cannot find  graham crackers here so i usually have to resort  

to some sort of uh other kind of cracker um that  will kind of work usually they're smaller you can  

make them work i can't remember the name of the  crackers that i use but i'll put them on screen  

there's two different kinds of crackers that i can  use to replace graham cracker but if you're trying  

to make s'mores or trying to make pie with the  graham cracker crust you're not gonna find graham  

crackers at least not easily i'm sure there's  online shops you can buy this kind of stuff  

but you're not gonna find it in a local grocery  store next food you might be surprised that you'll  

have a hard time finding is pepperoni okay so  americans obviously love pepperoni pizza it's  

probably the most popular flavor pizza in the  united states most people love pepperoni pizza  

and if you come to switzerland and you sit in a  restaurant and you see pepperoni pizza on the menu  

you might think it's going to be a pizza that has  little round pieces of kind of spicy meat on it  

but pepperoni in switzerland means pepper they use  the word pepperoni in switzerland to talk about  

bell peppers in german it's paprika i think  but in switzerland they say pepperoni which  

is actually the italian word so if you go to a  swiss restaurant and you ask for a pepperoni pizza  

you will get pizza with bell peppers on top  this happened to me when i first moved here  

i didn't know i didn't i think i was even asking  oh they have pepperoni pizza and everyone's like  

yeah of course they have pepperoni pizza um but  i was thinking it's gonna be something completely  

different um so yeah you will probably not find  american style pepperonis in a restaurant or in a  

grocery store so if you're looking to make a spicy  meat greasy pizza what swiss people use is salami  

or chorizo so chorizo would be probably closer  to pepperoni because it is like a spicy processed  

meat so if you like pepperoni pizza you probably  want to get a chorizo pizza in switzerland so  

the next food category that you will not find in  switzerland and swiss people might be surprised  

to hear that this is even a thing but you will  not find imitation food so what that means is  

in the u.s there are you will it's very common  i would say in grocery stores that things are  

imitation so it's not maple syrup it's imitation  maple syrup so it's a sugar mix that is meant to  

taste like syrup but it's not syrup okay it sounds  reasonable but it gets weirder right especially in  

the u.s a lot of cheese products and some dairy  products they're imitation cheese and you might  

not know it if you're not looking closely so  sometimes it'll say like cheese flavored slice  

right if it says i think i don't know there's some  weird laws in the u.s where if you call something  

chicken flavored or cheese flavored or cheddar  flavored it doesn't actually have to contain what  

that said anyways it's a whole weird thing but  here in switzerland i've never seen anything like  

that i've never seen anything labeled as something  flavored or imitation whatever which is obviously  

probably a good thing okay moving on from food  the third thing you will not find in switzerland  

are red cups i did not know red plastic cups  were an american thing until i moved overseas  

but you will not find these famous red cups  in grocery stores over here in fact i know  

a lot of people they seek out these kind of  cups to throw american themed kind of parties  

or people will literally bring them from from  the u.s if they want to you know have like a  

cool college party or something it's kind of funny  um but here i guess if you go to somebody's house  

for a party instead of having like in the u.s you  might have like a stack of of course people do it  

very differently but you might find a stack of red  cups and a sharpie right people write their name  

on it and that's their cup i've seen that a whole  lot in the u.s but if you go to somebody's house  

here for a party probably more than likely they'll  have regular just glasses and that kind of stuff  

but if it's like with a lot of people and they  do have disposable like cups and plates and stuff  

they look very different it's usually like um  this plastic that looks a little bit closer to  

like glass and they're skinny and tall i'll put in  a picture but this is what i've seen like eighty  

percent of the time at swiss events when they do  use disposable stuff um but in general i would say  

the swiss use a lot less disposable things um than  the that americans do um it's pretty rare here to  

see people eating you know in their home off of  paper plates or using disposable anything whereas  

in the us there were i know quite a few families  that use like disposable plates at home and stuff  

just to save time it's very um cheap to buy a  huge stack of paper plates at walmart or whatever  

and uh some people use them in their day-to-day  life again not everybody that's not super common  

but you might see that whereas here i have really  never heard of anything like that fourth thing is  

fancy garbage bags so i've talked a bit about this  before but in the u.s like garbage bags is a huge  

category it's a it's an industry there's all sorts  of different brands and marketing claims and that  

kind of stuff so if you're used to getting a  specific kind of garbage bag that's stretchy  

or scented or whatever they don't have that here  it really doesn't exist and the reason that market  

doesn't exist is because switzerland uses these uh  issued garbage bags that are taxed and basically  

everybody in the whole switzerland uses this  kind of garbage bag they'll be different colors  

depending on where they live in switzerland but  as far as i'm aware every corner of switzerland  

uses this system so you're not gonna find a market  for garbage bags because it doesn't exist these  

are the only garbage bags you can legally put in  most you know dumpster type of things fifth thing  

you cannot really buy in switzerland is crazy  stuff to spoil your pets and i know this might  

sound silly and ridiculous but americans love  to treat their pets like a child like a family  

member and you know i just got a dog when did we  get him about two years ago and i'm obsessed with  

spoiling him and buying him toys and stuff and  it's so much harder in switzerland to find cute  

little doggy things um that goes for like toys and  treats and all of that the variety here is just  

extremely small so whenever i go to the us i love  to go to petco and they just have massive aisles  

of every kind of dog everything imaginable  different toys different i mean really everything  

seasonal toys christmas comes around they'll  put out you know christmas tree tree-shaped  

ornaments and present-shaped dog toys and they'll  have you know christmas flavored dog treats and  

fall comes around they'll have pumpkin spice  dog treats and that kind of stuff i haven't seen  

any of that in switzerland it's pretty basic when  it comes to pets here there are of course people  

that spoil their dogs there's a lady by our house  that pushes them around in strollers i've seen  

that so there are those people but it's just  not so common to find these massive pet stores  

filled with you know all things that pets don't  need but owners like to give their pets you don't  

really find so much of that here okay last thing  you will not really easily buy in switzerland is  

over sized mega packs of anything this kind of  concept is not popular in switzerland at all and  

you will not commonly see massive packages of  anything so for example growing up it was very  

common to go to the grocery store and buy a gallon  drum of ice cream and keep it in the freezer that  

was pretty common people just think oh you have a  lot of kids and that's you know quite reasonable