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Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

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Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#271

Post by QuarterReptile »

derefr wrote: post #153
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.

I don't know: it seems like a lot of America's logistics and infrastructure design choices are made with equal consideration to inland and coastal populations, despite unequal size. For example, coastal US cities are designed for car travel despite their density, presumably because that makes them more accessible to "the average US citizen" who lives inland and goes everywhere by car.

You presume incorrectly. It's a tangled web of federal and state policies, along with the (not exclusively) American fetish for cars and low-density home ownership, which led to the car-centric design. And that's certainly reductive, but helping from landlocked states visit NYC and SF probably never played a role.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#273

Post by digitalzombie »

contingencies wrote: post #225
stcredzero wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese food culture is substantially different than the Western food culture, and I don't just mean the items on the menu. Things I've noticed about the particular Chinese food culture of my girlfriend: Ginger goes in Chicken soup. Garlic does not. Broccoli is only cooked until bright green. Black pepper is used, basically never. All vegetables are to be rinsed, even the things in Trader Joe's packages that say…

These are pretty good general rules of thumb. Interestingly the Vietnamese, by contrast, are very much in to rare meats. Broccoli and other vegetables are cooked only slightly because it is considered wasteful of the natural qualities of the food to overcook it (and probably because it wastes fuel also, which is also the reason for everything being cut small before cooking).

> Interestingly the Vietnamese, by contrast, are very much in to rare meats.

I blame the French.

Indochina happened.

The biggest evidence for this is Vietnamese word for beef is Bo. Which is a borrowed French word.

http://www.asian-central.com/stuffasianpeoplelike/2010/05/21...

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#274

Post by nommm-nommm »

secstate wrote: post #175
briandear wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps some data to back that up? Some of the best restaurants and chefs in the world are American. Have you been to an American grocery store of any reasonable quality? The cheese selection of many big-city grocery stores rivals even French grocery stores. I shop in France all the time and I am still amazed at the variety at many American grocery stores. Try finding Napa/Chinese cabbage, fresh chiles, daikon radish…

I dunno. Sample size may have something to do with this. I live in a rural section of the US now, but spent a year living in Eastern provincial France and the difference in the cheese case makes me cry when I think about it. Americans stock their shelves with "swiss" "american" "jack" and "cheddar" with almost all of them being made in about a week in cheese factory somewhere. Contrast that with having TWO versions o…

Every contemporary grocery store I've been to in the Northeast US has an artisanal cheese section... And I don't even live in a big city. It's not mixed in the with the "normal" cheeses though. My grocery store makes mozzarella in house too.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#275

Post by gameshot911 »

GBond wrote: post #182
Alex3917 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you've ever walked down Mott St. on a hot summer afternoon there will be no doubt in your nose that the produce isn't making the sanitation grade that you will find at Whole Foods. Are you sure what you're smelling isn't the fish markets or medicinal herb stores? Produce is produce, it doesn't smell like anything.

fish gut refuge + hot air/sun does not mix well

True. The parent comment was specifically referring to off produce, but I think what you mentioned plays a big factor too.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#276

Post by contingencies »

digitalzombie wrote: post #273
contingencies wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are pretty good general rules of thumb. Interestingly the Vietnamese, by contrast, are very much in to rare meats. Broccoli and other vegetables are cooked only slightly because it is considered wasteful of the natural qualities of the food to overcook it (and probably because it wastes fuel also, which is also the reason for everything being cut small before cooking).

> Interestingly the Vietnamese, by contrast, are very much in to rare meats. I blame the French. Indochina happened. The biggest evidence for this is Vietnamese word for beef is Bo. Which is a borrowed French word. http://www.asian-central.com/stuffasianpeoplelike/2010/05/21...

It does seem likely that bo is French boeuf-derived, but according to Wiktionary[0] the historical Vietnamese pronunciation of the Chinese character for beef (牛) was ngưu, ngọ, ngỏ, ngõ, ngâu. It is interesting that these are so similar to pan-Taic languages neua and Cantonese ngau.

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%89%9B#Vietnamese

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#277

Post by stcredzero »

Spellman wrote: post #188
stcredzero wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese food culture is substantially different than the Western food culture, and I don't just mean the items on the menu. Things I've noticed about the particular Chinese food culture of my girlfriend: Ginger goes in Chicken soup. Garlic does not. Broccoli is only cooked until bright green. Black pepper is used, basically never. All vegetables are to be rinsed, even the things in Trader Joe's packages that say…

Well, unless the meat is particularly fresh. Then you only cook to barely cooked. See steamed chicken where often it will be served with the marrow still red. And it's blasphemy to overcook fish.

And it's blasphemy to overcook fish.

Thanks. I think I just figured another one out!

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#278

Post by lotharbot »

davidw wrote: post #263
Alupis wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few people eat steaks every night, let alone good cuts of steak.

And yet... you can get them in stores. That's kind of the whole point. Not everyone in Italy eats clams or octopus or whatever every night either.

This has a lot to do with the fact that a cow is a whole animal. If you raise one to sell the chuck, you also get T-bones and ribeyes and tri-tips and flank steaks and so on. Most of that goes into the same retail pipeline, so availability is correlated.

On the other hand, expensive fish aren't usually a byproduct of producing cheap fish, nor vice versa.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#280

Post by SippinLean »

peterwwillis wrote: post #189

Off-topic: Is there a browser plugin that lets you vote on how annoying a site's ads are, so it can warn you before you go to the site? I have a feeling that kind of pressure could change the way ads are displayed, but without it we're going to keep getting our screens engulfed by an ad with no idea how to close it.

I was interested in this article but accidentally closed it, the interstitial ad made me think I was on a completely different site.

It was a full-page ad for "STITCH FIX", with it's own layout and, sigh, auto-playing video. Why would I ever click through that?!

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