Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

saveur.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 415 posts

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#401

Post by smallnamespace »

hutzlibu wrote: post #396
smallnamespace wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that at carrying capacity , the limiting factor is food and space. But most of our fisheries are far below that now. Fish can only breed as fast as there are breeding fish available, but we're eating them faster than they are being born. You can view a fishery basically as a giant fish-making factory. If you eat away half your fishery's biomass, then to a very rough first approximation, your factory will…

"your factory will only produce half as many fish." But then why is fish still so cheap and plenty of it avaiable, which was the main point? (but again, I don't know that, I am just refering to the argument)

One reason is that many governments are essentially paying people to take fish out of the ocean [1], to the tune of tens of billions a year. Japan, China, and Taiwan are some of the main players. They do it to keep fishermen employed.

Related to this: because technological change has made it really cheap and easy to catch fish [2], and up to now, that has more than offset the decreased productivity from damaging our fisheries.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisheries_subsidy [2] http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00222/33368/35784.pdf

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#402

Post by Nomentatus »

Nomentatus wrote: post #288
js2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author interviewed in this piece is the subject of a recent Frontline: The Fish on My Plate. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-fish-on-my-plate/ It's about his experiment of eating fish as his only protein for a whole year, as well as an investigation of where our fish comes from, fish farming practices, sustainability, etc. Aside, it may be a good thing Americans don't eat as much seafood as the rest of…

Fish isn't complete protein for humans, you will starve if it's literally your only protein (no wheat, lentils, etc.)

Downvotes seem to be accurate. My sources (some time ago) seem to have misinformed me.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#403

Post by mac01021 »

> Chinatown’s 80-plus produce markets are cheap because they are connected to a web of small farms and wholesalers that operate independently of the network supplying most mainstream supermarkets.

I don't get it.

Why can this web of small farms and wholesalers sell produce for less than normal suppliers can?

If Chinatown's suppliers are so much cheaper, why don't the other supermarkets use them too?

If Chinatown is consuming the entire output of these suppliers (explaining why the other supermarkets can't use the same source) then why don't the suppliers raise their prices? Even if some of the chinatown vendors could no longer afford the food, surely someone else would buy it.

Do plywood shelves at a grocery really make a noticeable difference in food prices?

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#404

Post by metaphorm »

Markoff wrote: post #343
metaphorm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

many fruits have rinds or peels that are removed before eating. those that aren't, well, they aren't so popular, and they are typically washed and peeled before serving. I've never seen anyone in Chinatown take a bite out of a totally raw, unprocessed apple.

please don't call ABCs Chinese, apparently one billion Chinese would disagree with your comment, apples are extremely popular, so are mandarins, tomatoes and nuts, all raw in China real Chinese eat lot of raw stuff, if ABCs don't it must be some of their local fetish

maybe it was lost on you that the linked article, and this entire discussion, is about the people living in Chinatown?

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#405

Post by vram22 »

wahern wrote: post #399
vram22 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, interesting. I suppose mutton is the staple food because of their huge area of steppe / grasslands. About the dumplings, I was just recently reading about manti [1], a Turkish dumpling (which is basically steamed or fried balls of dough filled with ground meat or other fillings). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manti_(dumpling) The Wikipedia article said it may be of Central Asian or Turkic / Mongol origin, an…

Not many vegetables and definitely not many fruits, although on a tour we did pass through an isolated little town in the Gobi that our driver said was known for its vegetables. As far as I could tell, they only seemed to have a few large gardens. Which I think proves the rule. But as you've pointed out there are plenty of other resources that discuss that, likely more accurate than my anecdotes. Mongolia is pretty l…

Cool, thanks for the detailed answer.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#406

Post by op00to »

metaphorm wrote: post #33

this rarely gets mentioned in these articles but it's extremely important. The Chinese food culture is substantially different than the Western food culture, and I don't just mean the items on the menu. Chinese don't eat raw foods at all, and especially not vegetables, which they correctly (by the standards of Chinatown produce) view as being unsanitary until thoroughly cooked. They have created a market that is effi…

> it doesn't produce epidemics of food-borne illness in their community because they handle and cook food appropriately.

Do you have a source for this? Food borne illness goes massively unreported because except in infants and the elderly, it generally resolves by itself. I can only imagine that given the challenges immigrant communities have with getting adequate health care in the US, they are even less likely to report food borne illness. I just can't see the link between "Chinese cook their vegetables more" and no epidemics of food borne illness.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#407

Post by ddacunha »

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...

Interesting, I just had diner with a French friend and his wife currently living in Hanoi. As we were sharing a nice peace or rare beef they told me that they could never have that there, and that in their experience the locals thoroughly cook their meet. I have been to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi before for holidays and work and don't have any specific memories on the subject but the version I know of Vietnamese food thoroughly cook the meet.

Edit: I concede that Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi are two very different cities and the proliferation of French like restaurant is more present in Ho Chi Minh City as far as I remember.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#408

Post by SilverCurve »

meric wrote: post #321
contingencies wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Probably because two thousand plus years ago the area that is now called Guangdong, and the area that is now Vietnam, was inhabited by the same people; And then the Guangdong area was conquered by China. The people who lived in Guangdong inter-married with the Chinese migrating south and also had a lot of influence on Cantonese. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southward_expansion_of_the_Han... Vietnam is "Yue-nam" in C…

Vietnamese here. I don't think your explanation is correct.

First, most of the Viet-Cantonese words are likely brought by Chinese migration since the 15th century. When the Ming dynasty fell, many Chinese fled to South Vietnam and helped Viet people annex that land from the Cambodians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoa_people

Second, tt's true that we "might" have lots of connections with the ancient Yue people, but this is still in debate. Just like the Romans called everyone on the other side of the Rhine "Germans", the Chinese of 2000 years ago called everyone south of them "Yue", even though they can be different tribes or nations. Being named the same thing by the Chinese doesn't actually mean anything. Genetically we have many similarities with the people of south China, but the history of vocabularies can be more complicated than that.

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#409

Post by Arizhel »

logfromblammo wrote: post #383
Arizhel wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 That's true everywhere in the US. It's very hard to find an authentic Japanese restaurant, and even harder to find one run by actual Japanese people. Usually, "Japanese" restaurants are run by Koreans.

Well... that's one step closer to authentic than a "Japanese" restaurant run by Han Chinese, I guess. In my town, the authentic Japanese restaurant was next to the Subaru and Mitsubishi/Toyota car dealerships, and was pretty much there just so the auto executives had a reliably Japanese place to eat while visiting. It went out of business. Japanese people may be the best at making a restaurant authentically Japanese,…

Sure, but the discussion here wasn't profitability, it was authenticity. You're not going to find many authentic Japanese restaurants in America, especially outside of major cities which have enough Japanese people to support them. I have a Japanese girlfriend, and for her it's a big deal to go to an authentic Japanese restaurant; some "Japanese-themed" restaurant run by Chinese people isn't of much interest to her, she'd probably rather go for a burger than that. (Luckily, she likes burgers too, as long as they're good.)

Re: Why Chinatown Produce Is Cheap (2016)

#410

Post by contingencies »

ddacunha wrote: post #407
digitalzombie wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Interesting, I just had diner with a French friend and his wife currently living in Hanoi. As we were sharing a nice peace or rare beef they told me that they could never have that there, and that in their experience the locals thoroughly cook their meet. I have been to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi before for holidays and work and don't have any specific memories on the subject but the version I know of Vietnamese food…

Err, bo tai means rare beef and it is easy to acquire in Vietnam.
Post reply on HN