Becoming Bilingual (and Figuring out Flour)

Eric has been speaking only Spanish to the kids since they were born, so they both understand pretty much everything (even if they reply in English). We're used to being a (passively) bilingual family. But I didn't think we'd need to learn a new language when we moved to England!

While we understand most of what people say to us, there have been some moments of misunderstanding. Today at rock climbing class, for example, the teacher told Rebecca and the other kids to "queue up" behind him. Rebecca looked at me like he was crazy--"Q up?" I could hear her thinking. I translated and she fell in line.

A few weeks ago, before the flu took us all down, we went to Village Coffee Hour at the church. The nice woman who runs it offered the kids a biscuit. They looked highly skeptical at first until they realized that biscuits were chocolate chip cookies, rather than something that goes with gravy and mashed potatoes.

Snack foods are especially tricky...French fries are chips, of course, and chips are crisps. Cookies are biscuits, as are most crackers, and crackers are something you pop open on a holiday (which is actually a vacation, I'm not even sure what the word for holiday is--maybe festive occasion?) Oh, and raisins are sultanas, which I have to say sounds more impressive and exotic.

But here's the clincher for me. I have yet to figure out the flour aisle in our supermarket. Seriously, I have spent over half and hour in this aisle trying to understand what the different options are:

These pictures are probably hard to read, but if any of you can help me figure out what these are, that would be great. For example, how is "sauce flour" different from "thickening flour"? What is the difference between "strong" and "very strong" flour? What makes flour strong? And why does "plain flour" have baking soda added? I have yet to find actual plain flour that is really just flour.

In most aisles of the grocery stores here there are far fewer choices than in America. In the flour aisle, I counted over a dozen variations of regular wheat flour. I would understand this if everyone in this country baked like mad, but I've recently read all these news articles about how half of people here never cook anything from scratch. I guess the half that do bake are very discerning about their flour!

As a side note, I realize we are incredibly lucky to have moved to a country where we really do speak the language (for the most part). I cannot imagine how difficult it would be for people who immigrate to a new country and share none of the language at all...

Now, I'm off to make tortillas (with a combination of not-really-plain flour, spelt flour, and wholemeal flour, in case you're interested.)