Aug 31 2007
Playing With Food
An Asian supermarket opened up near me.
Wow. What a selection of fruit, fresh vegetables and brightly colored shrink-wrapped snack items!
I’m not so sure about those snacks; they looked like edible Play-Doh.
I’ve been in the smaller neighborhood Asian markets but not a supermarket. This one had a butcher market, giant fish tanks and massive slabs of frozen meat.
I’m not used to Massive Slabs Of Frozen Meat.
I’m used to Protein Units. I’m used to something like 4 boneless and skinless chicken breasts laid out on a plastic tray.
This would be 4 Protein Units for me. Or 2 for the average person.
Those Asian shrink-wrapped snacks may have been in different shapes and sizes but I had no idea there were so many lime green and hot pink spongy-doughy looking foodstuffs out there.
Quite different than American foodstuffs which tend to be bright orange.
Typical of Asian markets, the prices, especially on produce were much lower than at American supermarkets.
I’m not quite sure how to eat some of the fruit that I saw on display. I think they were fruit. They were in the fruit section. But some had these…shells and spines and I dunno what all so I’ll have to ask my dad or well, someone who knows about such things.
I purchased some fruit that I recognized: nectarines, plums and pears.
The pears aren’t quite ripe yet and they are different than the pears I usually buy - those stubby-stemmed ones, called Bartlett.
It will be a shame to eat these pears.
They are absolutely lovely: freckly, subtly sensuous, and elegantly stemmed.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A couple of years ago, a Vietnamese guy I knew gave me some candy and I thought how different his life was because he was referring to this sponge as a candy. I mean, I guess I shouldn’t be ethnocentric and probably to him it was as fun as it was for me to eat Snickers. Right? (I don’t really believe that. I think it’s messed up that people in the world don’t know the taste of Nestle. Hopefully, if I continue staring at the bottom picture I’ll meet the owners of Nestle in hell).
PITS (I saw someone refer to you as this in your blog): I like Hershey’s but I do like Nestle’s Kit-Kats (best frozen!). Although these days I rarely eat milk chocolate and like super-dark chocolate (like 85% cocoa).
Yeah, spongy candy just doesn’t seem like candy to me. When I went to South Africa, my friends said to me, chocolate isn’t candy, it’s CHOCOLATE. I said that in the US, chocolate is a type of candy. My friends found this unacceptable. Chocolate is it’s own thing.
I had to smile at your last sentence! I’m guessing you GOT the visual pun??
Update: why hell? Why not Heaven??
Chocolate, pears…those seems more heavenly than … elsewhere
There’s a huge Asian supermarket down the street from where I teach Sunday school. I remember stopping in there thinking surely they’d have whatever common item I was just stopping in for. Whatever it was, they didn’t have it, but I remember being amazed at all the stuff they did have. I like looking at the stuff in the middle eastern grocery stores too.
I love the 85% cocoa chocolate!!!!! I hated dark chocolate until I did the South Beach diet. When you can barely eat anything, any chocolate is good chocolate. Ever since I got used to it, I like it as well as milk or probably better than milk. And I ********LOVE*********** the idea of chocolate as en entity unto itself.
Jill: I like going into the ethnic (aka “a place that sells products other than the country you’re currently in”) grocery stores as well. There are so many different ethnic groups here that some neighborhood stores will have Mexican, Greek and Middle Eastern food items with maybe some Vietnamese condiments thrown in (like hot fish sauce).
Yeah, the super-dark chocolate is really nice. I notice that if I eat milk chocolate I keep wanting to eat it. If I eat dark chocolate, I get my “chocolate fix.” I also get the same effect with coffee: if I have a really good cup (dark roast, richly flavored) I “had my cup of coffee.” If I drink some wimpy coffee (opaque) I keep wanting a cup of coffee.
I’ll have to rethink coffee as its own category. It was the funniest “argument” I had with my friend Laverne. It wasn’t so much of an argument as a “How could you believe THAT?” type of response on her part. Like, jeez, it’s OBVIOUS that chocolate isn’t candy? Can’t you SEE?
That’s true, now that she mentions it it is rather obvious: it’s more like a staple.
Nice pears.
Did they have Mochi Ice Cream treats? You should get some of those.
Jill: Hmm. Maybe I’ll have to change my mind - I thought of chocolate as candy or a subset but if you’re thinking it’s a staple and my friend is..well, maybe I should succumb to peer pressure! I’m a former choco-holic.
Riley: “Nice pears.” heheheheh!
They do have Mochi Ice Cream treats. They also have other mochi things - sweet beans in rice pastry. The packages say “mochi” They do look lovely or some of them do: translucent greens and pinks. I haven’t looked at the ingredients so don’t know if they are healthier than American sweets.
The photo of the pears got me going for a moment. I usually associate that body part with melons or nice sized grapefruit. You’ve turned one of my favorite fruits into something even more edible. Don’t mind the comments my mind has been in the gutter lately.
I like the Asian food stores in the hood, especially for their ginger product.
Urban Thought: The photo of the pears WAS supposed to get you going! When I first saw the pears I thought, gee, they sure are lovely and I decided they’d make a great still life.
Then I thought hmm, “pair of pears” - got a post idea.
As I began to write the post, the sentence, “Nice pair!” came to mind (yeah, my thoughts drifted into the Freudian landscape of hotdogs flying through donuts speeding through the Lincoln Tunnel…) and now you have the history of how that last photo came into being.
It was a little…tricky.
Yow! I love ginger stuff, too! Trader Joe’s came up with this Ginger spread - it’s hot and sweet - think crystallized ginger jam.
I’m an antique so am not sure about ‘website’ (I don’t have one).
After many years of living in other countries and, finally, returning in 2000 (with 24 lb. Thai curry paste and 30 lb. jasmine rice), I am so
pleased to see Americans making food choices which are causing them to become, a bit, adventurous! I’m, still, feeling somewhat deprived as there isn’t a Vietnamese, or Lebanese, “take-away food”
restaurant in Albuquerque - PTL for a good Thai place to go as well as an Oriental market. I hope all readers of this blog.spot are visiting the Food Network and Epicurious, online. to search out the recipes with ingredients which don’t include Hershey’s or Nestle’s Yuckolate (or, should that be Chuckolate?). The majority of Americans would benefit from a good palate-cleansing but, unfortunately, pizza and the fat-laden take-out may become more popular . . . Mario Batali or Emeril Lagasse for President!!
Thank you…
Patt Major: thanks for stopping by! In case you check back, “website” is a field you can fill in in case you have your own blog. That way someone can read your comment and maybe check out your blog if they like what you had to say or are curious to know more about you.
If you have been exposed to the foods of many countries and you like them (not everyone likes “different” food) it does make you miss the variety if you live someplace with few food choices. I certainly enjoy the variety of foods (spices, produce, restaurants) where I live.