Asian groceries like H Mart and Patel Brothers are reshaping America
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
It's also a joy to wander around and discover new foods from all over the world - fresh lychee, frozen puffed tofu, salted puffed mung beans, and soursop juice are all things I only got to try because of H-Mart or Lotte. Their seafood selection is also incredible.
We live in the San Francisco Bay Area so there are a LOT of international supermarkets!
We found Indian, Mexican, South American, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Middle Eastern - but my favourite ended up being the Korean Kukje supermarket in Daly City.
Eventually we realized that the trick is to go with at least one recipe in mind, which turns it into a more structured effort to find those ingredients (and then impulse buy lots of other interesting things).
How it ended: (a basket full of Korean snacks, random side dishes, drinks, ingredients for other dishes that I can’t make well)
(US bento boxes are amusing. There's a chain restaurant near me which offers them, but they're super-sized, the size of a cafeteria tray.)
Curry leaves are just the aromatic leaves of a bush like plant used primarily in south Indian cooking much like basil in Italian or makrut lime leaves in Thai cuisine.
Curry pastes and powders are mixtures of spices: turmeric, cumin, coriander, fennel, mustard seeds, asafoetida, black pepper, cloves etc. Every region and family has their own blend of spices.
Reminds me of buying "chili powder" from an Asian grocery and getting powdered chiles instead. The resulting pot of chili was very bland and way too hot at the same time.
Over here it's always just chillis.
I can imagine it being different outside the US, but this store was in Seattle so you can see my confusion.
https://www.seriouseats.com/what-is-tadka-tarka-chaunk-chhon...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry_tree
see the section Distribution and habitat.
There's a lot of things that I have no idea what they are but also a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. The place is big.
Which is why having mung bean-based snacks (like some of the Indian snacks) would be a nice change.
> American culture has Ghost Pepper potato chips, Sriracha potato chips, Flaming Hot Cheetos, Jalepeno chips, etc..
Which is why I think there's a lot of potential for Indian snacks in the US.
There’s just so much unique cuisine in the world and we’re all fat enough already :-)
I'd try some chicken 65 and biryani if they have fresh food for purchase.
This means the clerk was suggesting samosas because they're not spicy.
Fortunately, we have alternatives, including really good Vietnamese markets in Dorchester and the Patel Bros in Waltham Mass -- still very old school, very cheap for produce, and lots of really special things you can't get elsewhere.
I go to Patel Brothers for stuff like cilantro. The costs are so low they seem free, the herbs are fresher, and the bunches are huge. Same story for other key items like Mangos.
However, it isnt the best for everything. I have just developed a mental hash-table of what to get from which store {HMart/etc vs ShopRite vs Trader Joes vs Costco}.
Picked up an 8 pack of these huge boneless pork chops and a 4lb tray of really good Mac 'n Cheese there last week for $25 total. Fed our family of 4 twice, so a little over $3 per meal. Meanwhile, burgers/fries/drinks X 4 at Shake Shack is $80, over $100 if you actually get shakes too.
Later I've found out it is used for ritual burning and, since that is difficult to obtain in an urban setting, online retailers are selling it too.
Even found a review on Amazon of a person complaining that it tasted terrible.
It seems like a micro-agression (not sure what word to use) that Safeway, Lucky's, Vons, etc are "grocery stores" but 99 Ranch, K-Mart, Pacific Supermarket are "Asian Grocery stores". Effectively, you're "normal" if you go to a "grocery store" but you're abnormal if you go to an "asian grocery store".
I think they should rename/reclassify the "mostly based on European culture groceries stores" as something a little less "this is the norm".
This is especially true in majority Asian areas since going to Safeway, Lucky's, Vons, etc is probably not the norm.
https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-san-francisco-ca/
And, even though I know there will be lots of downvotes, it sure would be nice to hear some argument for why this doesn't matter. It's effectively telling people they're foreigners. If you weren't a foreigner you'd go to the "grocery store" but because you're not really part of here you go to an "asian grocery store". It's pretty clear, at least to me, the one of those is considered the "norm" and other the exception and it follows there's a judgement there.
- Everyone I know of any cultural background says they're going to the "grocery store" by default, even if they're going to H Mart or whatever. If they're specific about going to a Mexican/Asian/etc store, it's because they're looking for stuff not easily found elsewhere.
- Many are very proud of their culture's cuisine, and are more than happy to make a distinction. They don't feel "othered" for it.
- Big box stores absolutely tailor their stock to the demographics around them. A Safeway or a Costco in the Bay Area isn't the same as one Eugene, OR. What's considered "normal" in one area is not the same as another.
how is this any different from stuff like?
"American grocery stores" also cater to the demographics around them. For example, Safeways in the Bay Area carry all the staples necessary to make Mexican food despite being an "American" grocery store.
"American food" is what Americans eat. There are plenty of American's that don't eat the food from "Default grocery stores". You comment can be summed up as "if you don't eat the same foods as from "default" grocery stores you're not really American"
These classic American foods tended to be the most commonly eaten things in years past, so American grocery stores tended to carry groceries for those dishes. They were the most common type of grocery store by a massive margin, and they are the type of grocery store that sells the cuisine of the country in which they reside, so they are just called "grocery stores". In italy, do italians call the store that sells tomato sauce and spaghetti an Italian grocery store? Of course not, it's just The Grocery Store.
If alice thinks bob is less american for shopping at an asian grocery store, the problem lies with alice, not with the society that makes a distinction between "default" and asian grocery stores.
At some point you have to recognize that society and the general makeup of the population has changed and re-word things. We went from policeman to police officer to acknowledge that it's not just men who are police. Same with Stewardess vs Flight Attendant. We should be doing the same here and not define some "default" that excludes so much of the population.