First day in your foreign home, and you need food. Still jetlagged, you wander through the supermarket wondering why some things seem normal and others leave you mystified. These questions may sound familiar:

~How many ounces is 175g?
~Where did they hide the tinned tuna fish?
~What on earth is that, and can I eat it?
~Which one of these cartons contains skim milk?
~And from my son: Why is that thing such a yucky colour?

You are experiencing culinary culture shock.

Like many mothers, I have a job and other interests outside food shopping, but my family needs to eat, even in places where I don't speak the language or recognise the food. The early hurdles of store organisation, weights and measures, vocabulary, and packaging are actually the easiest to overcome. You will figure most of it out, although there may be some setbacks; we have ended up with bags of lentils instead of coffee beans and my friend Dana was once handed a package of frozen fish when she thought she had asked for a cold drink. The real issue isn't actually surviving; there is always something to eat. The key challenge is how to make the most out of the gastronomic experience of living overseas, and every expat family find their own way to adapt to eating foreign food.

The "when in Rome" approach seems the most straightforward -- just eat what the locals eat. However, it depends on where you live and whether or not you have kids. Years ago, single in France, I embraced everything French, ate well and even relished shopping because I had time to wander from one store to another and chat with shopkeepers. I've always enjoyed ordering from foreign menus without knowing what's coming. It's true that I've had to eat things like crispy fried frog skin, or a plate of duck tongues, but it's been interesting.

Unfortunately, young, inflexible children may not enjoy the challenge quite so much. For every child who happily eats noodle soup for breakfast there are two like my friend Maria's girl who must have Cheerios no matter where she is. By dint of argument and bribery I once persuaded my cheddar cheese-loving son to sample fondue, and gained a whole head of grey hair in the process.

Faced with suspicious children, the alternative "we'll eat as we've always eaten" method seems the simplest way to ease the transition. The American food writer Calvin Trillin refers to a certain "Hometown Food Nostalgia" deep within us all, and in times of change and during holidays it's stronger than ever. We want what we already know; in my case American food, and at first glance it seems to be everywhere.

The Tummy Trilogy (with a new foreword)

Nevertheless, you run into problems when you try to buy and cook exclusively with these products. The first glitch is that they don't always taste the same as the original, and secondly, the price of such "staples" can be outrageous. Things like pancake mix, baked beans, or Branston pickle just shouldn't be so absurdly expensive outside their homeland. Furthermore, when a home recipe calls for hard-to-find essential ingredients the hunt may become time-consuming and even obsessive.

Finally, you suffer from an increased dependency on others. I regularly beg my family for food parcels for the items I really crave and my mother sneaks all kinds of goodies in with her luggage. An American friend recently flew back to England with 15 packages of grits for her Southern acquaintances there. Internet groups abound with pleas for resources for food, or even for the postal exchange of delicacies between relative strangers. When all else fails, the Internet is a gold mine for non-perishable items. I've book marked a series of mail order services for those really special ingredients, despite the expense. Sometimes it just seems worth it.

There is of course no one answer to the challenge of shopping and eating abroad. Balancing tradition with a willingness to experiment seems the best solution for many. In my family we have slowly become more adaptable, as I discover new local favourites to enrich my recipe file, and in the end we have reverted to a sort of international hodgepodge of dining that is probably familiar to other expats. My friend Laura has taught me how to fearlessly approach strangers examining interesting-looking items at the meat and produce sections in the supermarket and ask them how to cook them. These strangers (usually other mothers) are first surprised at my bold questioning, and then pleased at my obvious interest in their country's food.

Nevertheless, my own secret is eating out as often as possible (though never as often as I would like), and letting someone else do all of the hard work!