It wasn’t long ago that leaving the U.S. for the Old World meant learning to live without a wide range of foodstuffs, from Oreos to blueberries.

Now, pretty much everything you have ever eaten is available. Even perishable fruits and vegetables.

Which still amazes me.

Like the little box of blueberries I am looking at.

These blueberries apparently come from Oregon. According to the label, from Hurst’s Berry Farm in McMinnville, Oregon. “Family owned since 1980”, declares the italicized info.

(Now, unfortunately, the company is officially known as HBF International, which could be anything. Sounds a bit like a trucking company. Or maybe they make tires.)

Anyway, that this box of berries came from Oregon to Abu Dhabi in time for me to eat them, is just mind-bending.

For starters, it’s hard to imagine how the economic model works. I assume the berries have to be flown to the UAE, and isn’t that expensive?

Also, lengthy? What keeps the blueberries from going bad? They aren’t like apples, are they, that can be stored for months or years?

I would guess one answer to the “economic model” is to fly the blueberries only to countries with high average income. Like, say, the UAE. Maybe via UPS or some other carrier? Packed into the belly of domestic flights? (And it’s 15 hours from San Francisco to Abu Dhabi, in the air.)

I paid a pretty steep price for these, I confess — 17.50 dirhams ($4.76) for 4.4 ounces of blueberries — the little container, about 4 inches by 5 and 1 inch high.

But they certainly look nice in my cereal.

Five years ago, I marveled at the availability of Bakersfield-shipped “Bunny-Luv” carrots. The little shaved ones, in the bag, that I ate back in California. Those were sold in Abu Dhabi, too.

But moving around vegetables is nothing, compared to berries or fruit — like the bananas from the Philippines that I also bought.

That some producer much closer to the UAE has not landed blueberries on the shelves of my local supermarket (Spinneys, actually) also is amazing.

We are told blueberries, for instance, which are native to North America, are now grown in Turkey — which is “only” a five-hour plane ride from Abu Dhabi.

But the guys in Oregon make it work, even though they are about 10,000 miles away from here. Bravo.

Also, McMinnville, random personal stat … I was there once, about 15 years ago, in and out, to see Linfield College beat the tar out of the University of Redlands in football and write about it. (I had always wanted to cover a Division III road game.)

Anyway, I can tell you, from what I recall as a long drive from the Portland airport, that McMinnville is not the kind of place you just stumble across.

But if I am ever there again … I want a tour of the berry facility, and I would like to see the shrubs, preferably just before the blueberries are picked, in the summer. (McMinnville apparently is big into wine, too.)

And when I feel like a splurge, I have the option to buy blueberries, and will. They are pretty good, after all.