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Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

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Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#121

Post by matwood »

tn135 wrote: post #66

As a fish loving Indian, I was totally surprised to see that in Capitalist America the choice of fish was absolutely pathetic. At American fish places you only get "shrimps" may be "large shrimps" and "small shrimps". Salmon, Bass, Red Snapper and just few handful of usual fish. My small village fish market offers at least 20 varieties of fish in India's coastal region. A proper fish market would offer at least 100.…

Are those 100 fish in the market all local and fresh? I live on the coast in 'Capitalist America', and usually only eat fish that is fresh (thus typically local). Most of the markets only stock said types of fish/shrimp/oysters because I have always assumed it is what people want. I have noticed more non-local fish show up as mid-westerners have moved to my coastal city though.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#122

Post by mixmastamyk »

stcredzero wrote: post #101
derwiki wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is not Chinatown, and I think your sample size is a bit small considering how many Chinese exist.

China is not Chinatown Said dozens of times by my Chinese-born girlfriend in SF Chinatown: "I have no idea what this is." "This is weird."

Born where? I believe west coast Chinatowns were built by Cantonese and separated by 100+ years. See the recent post about american chinese food.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#123

Post by athenot »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #70
naravara wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what's stopping chains from replicating this. Scale. Anything living has a level of variability and likelihood of failure/damage/spoilage to it that gets harder and harder to manage as your scale gets bigger. When you're a small shopkeeper who sells about 3 baskets of apples a day, it's both easier to sift through it and throw out the bad ones AND easier to find 3 basket's w…

There's also the matter of what trade-offs customers are willing to accept. I suspect that the customers here care a lot more about price, whereas the typical suburban supermarket customers are willing to pay premiums for things like later operating hours, selection of goods, higher likelihood of availability, and the "organic" label on produce.

And taste. And freshness. I find a much better selection of flavors at my local Asian mart, and produce is usually a lot fresher since it moves off the shelves fast. Contrast with my local supermarket which sees that same bunch of brussel sprouts stay out all week, until it shrivels up and end up tossing half in the trash.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#124

Post by mncharity »

tn135 wrote: post #66

As a fish loving Indian, I was totally surprised to see that in Capitalist America the choice of fish was absolutely pathetic. At American fish places you only get "shrimps" may be "large shrimps" and "small shrimps". Salmon, Bass, Red Snapper and just few handful of usual fish. My small village fish market offers at least 20 varieties of fish in India's coastal region. A proper fish market would offer at least 100.…

It's not just fish. A staple of graduate student conversation is "Food X was a favorite of mine at home, but" "I can't find it in Boston" or "the American version is a bad tasteless joke".

One issue is lag - the American general food supply diversifies more slowly than the population.

Another issue is corporate consolidation of the food supply chain. For example, New England used to have a lot of small confectionery manufacturers, from big factories to mom&pops, which over the last three decades have most all been crushed out by Nabisco. Which is much lower quality. So "why doesn't Boston have good confectionery like", err, Castile? Well, we used to be a lot closer, but Nabisco et al.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#125

Post by opportune »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #113
nyolfen wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the answer is simply that most of america is very far inland, and seafood is best fresh -- especially if one is especially sensitive to the 'fishy' taste it acquires after about a day or two, even frozen. every coastal community i've ever spent time in has a plethora of seafood restaurants, though i'm not sure if this extends to grocery stores.

Most of the landmass is far from the coasts, true, but the population concentrates at the coasts. So the geography is probably not the reason why fish is less popular in the US. There are probably multiple reasons but one could be that the competition from meat is very strong. Coming from Europe, I was always surprised how cheap meat is in the US.

Yeah all these people talking about Americans not having good taste in food are entirely missing the point. It has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with economics.

There's no reason to eat fish when in almost all cases chicken, pork, and beef provide much cheaper and filling sources of protein. I mean, I love the taste of fish, but even I rarely eat it because it's just that much more efficient to feed myself with chicken and red meat.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#126

Post by a3n »

XaspR8d wrote: post #109
chimeracoder wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a fish loving Indian, I was totally surprised to see that in Capitalist America the choice of fish was absolutely pathetic As explained below, the issue is one of demand. For whatever reason, people in the US don't like fish . I'm Bengali, which means our cuisine includes a lot of fish. But in the US, I almost never eat fish in restaurants - only when we're cooking it at home. And that's because the way it's coo…

> People in the US tend to prefer fish that's already bland to begin with (cod, haddock, tilapia, and sometimes tuna or salmon) To be fair, in the Midwest this is often because there used to be a diet of much more flavorful freshwater fish from local lakes, but overfishing destroyed their populations and pushed prices way up, forcing cuisine to adapt to cheap saltwater fish.

Fresh water fish strikes me as likely very labor intensive, and labor is searched for and destroyed in this country, in favor of industrial sized processes and yields.

I see big fillets of salmon and other large fish in Krogers, from the large industrial supply chain, next to the occasional little trouts and whatevers, and I often wonder "where do those little guys come from? How is it possible for them to get into this case?"

I'm not at all aware of any fresh water/river fishing companies, it strikes me as unsustainable except on a semi-recreational basis.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#127

Post by selimthegrim »

and0 wrote: post #95
dxbydt wrote: post #60

Ha! I figured out the reason even before I read the whole article... always a gratifying feeling. That said, there are tons of food hacks if you want to save 30-40% and have a strong stomach. Buy your cashews, cumin seeds, turmeric, groundnuts, papayas, guavas from the nearby Indian store - there's tons of them in CA. Most of these are sourced from Fiji, Philippines, India etc, whereas Safeway would source cumin from…

Seconding buying spices from Indian markets. Here in NoVA you can get a pound of spice for as much as Safeway sells 2oz of it.

Spices from India can often have dangerous levels of salmonella and other contaminants.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/health/12-percent-of-us-sp...

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#128

Post by davidw »

opportune wrote: post #125
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the landmass is far from the coasts, true, but the population concentrates at the coasts. So the geography is probably not the reason why fish is less popular in the US. There are probably multiple reasons but one could be that the competition from meat is very strong. Coming from Europe, I was always surprised how cheap meat is in the US.

Yeah all these people talking about Americans not having good taste in food are entirely missing the point. It has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with economics. There's no reason to eat fish when in almost all cases chicken, pork, and beef provide much cheaper and filling sources of protein. I mean, I love the taste of fish, but even I rarely eat it because it's just that much more efficient to feed m…

The US is a pretty wealthy place. I lived in Italy for something like 15 years, and people there eat a lot of fish too, of varying kinds. By and large, they do not have as much money as people do in the US.

If it were only about efficiency, you'd probably just eat beans and rice, day in and day out, with a bit of this and that thrown in.

Edit: BTW, this book has some interesting ideas about the US and food: http://amzn.to/2oVeaYz

Among other things, he points out that the US does have slow food with a high degree of regional variety: barbecue.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#129

Post by ithinkinstereo »

metaphorm wrote: post #119
rifung wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since sushi is Japanese, doesn't it make sense that it would be found in Little Tokyo instead of Chinatown? Maybe there are lots of Chinese people eating it outside of Chinatown?

there's a huge number of sushi restaurants all over New York and a lot of them are not authentically Japanese nor are they owned or operated by Japanese Americans. Sushi is very popular in New York, much more popular than the Japanese population alone would support. There are sushi restaurants in neighborhoods where the residents enjoy sushi. The absence of them in Chinatown is an indicator that the residents there (…

Your observations basically boil down to "my co-worker, who is Chinese, does not like raw fish, therefore..."

There are plenty of sushi restaurants in Chinatown: https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=sushi&start=0&l=p:NY:N...

There are also traditional - and popular - Chinese dishes that involve raw fish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusheng

You have to understand that Chinese people are huge gluttons (I say this without any judgement). They love to eat.. there are even idioms about it!

1) http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/they...

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#130

Post by sotojuan »

mistermann wrote: post #80
paulddraper wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Markets also cut costs by eschewing extra technology and certain aesthetic choices—the Journal points out that shelves “are typically made of plywood and lined with newsprint,” prices are scrawled on cardboard instead of printed on stickers, and credit cards are not always accepted. Some people don't want to buy food with cardboard signs and cash. Hell, I've heard California even has people who are fans of convenie…

> Some people don't want to buy food with cardboard signs and cash. Gee, I wonder why do you have to pay with cash....that might be one contributing factor why prices can't be matched by mainstream retailers.

Immigrants in general, but especially Asian ones, do not want to pay the fees required to accept cards.

Most people in their communities are fine with it.

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