Shame and The Endangered Lunch Hour

How are you spending lunch?

Smells From the Past: The Fulton Fish Market

It's been a very hot summer here in New York City. And the city smells. It's more than the smell of baking asphalt, exhaust fumes, and lack of deodorant—these smells are around all year. The heat has awakened older smells.

Around midday, if you happen to stroll down by the South Street Seaport you can pick up on the smell of fish in the air. If you can manage to follow your nose—which really isn't all that hard to do—it will lead you right to the old site of the Fulton Fish Market. It has been closed since 2005, but if you close your eyes while you stand outside the gates of the old market building you can smell the day's catch and just hear the bustle of fishmongers at their trade.

Eating for Memory

When my parents moved to Florida five years ago, they took many of my food traditions with them. I never really learned how to make many of our cultural foods. As a teenager I suppose I had presumed they would always be close enough for me to request breakfast staples and special occasion dishes as needed or desired. Fortunately, S and I live within driving distance of a thriving West Indian community, so when I start to long for a taste of "home," I can find something close enough to the flavors from my childhood to satisfy. It's not quite the same, but it is enough.

C is for Cookie: Cookie Monster, Network Pressure, and Identity Formation

It’s not quite news that Cookie Monster no longer eats cookies. Well, he eats ONE cookie. After he fills up on vegetables! Vegetables!! Understandably, the public was outraged, and in response, Cookie felt the need to clarify: He still eats cookies—for dessert—but he likes fruit and vegetables too. Cookie Monster needed to reassert his identity, so he did what anyone would do: He interviewed with Matt Lauer. The message was plain: He’s a Cookie Monster and Cookie Monsters eat cookies. They dream of cookies. They would bathe in cookies if they could. They can’t get enough of cookies. But can Cookie Monsters eat fruits and vegetables too?

Can Peruvian Coffee Gain a Foothold at Home?

The lives of Peruvian coffee growers and their families are not easy. Coffee growers outside of cooperatives often don't get paid very much for their product. Often they sell beans at market to a middleman, who may sell the beans again to another contact, who may then get the beans to a known roaster and wholesaler. The beans often change hands several times—and for the local grower this means low prices for his product. And that leads to other problems.

Peruvian Coffee: Matching Consumption With Production

Peruvian coffee has been developed specifically for foreign markets, which allows foreign brands to hold a position of importance in the absence of a domestic presence. Brands, such as Nescafe, may have infiltrated the market and spread under the reputation of industrialism and modernity.

Making Coffee Conversational Again: The Return of the Coffeehouse

The original coffeehouses were public gathering places. They were social spaces where people could argue politics, get and share news, and just generally enjoy each others' company. This trend persisted despite attempts to ban these meetinghouses and the caffeinated beverage that drew people together. Coffee—and caffeine—had us hooked on this type of downtime. But it wouldn’t last.

A Trail of Coffee Beans

The word coffee dates to the late 16th-century, and is derived from the Dutch word koffie. But both the word and the product are much older than this, although the Dutch are a big reason coffee found its way to America. We talked on Monday about how coffee was marketed into our lives, and I mentioned that its value was linked to its origin. But where does coffee come from? 

Manufacturing The Coffee Culture

This week on AiP, I'm featuring a three-part series on coffee. Today's post investigates how coffee came to be such an integral part of everyday life. Look for additional posts on Wednesday and Friday for followup discussions.

Why Do Some Like It Hot?

Why do some people like and prefer spicy foods to the point where they consume mouth scorching dishes—and ask for more? This was the question posed to me by a coworker recently, as he reached helplessly for the can of spicy peanuts sitting in the communal kitchen area at work. 

The Lunch Truck: Providing a Small Taste of Ethnic Foods for the Adventurous

What do you normally have for lunch? Leftovers? A sandwich? Do you bring it from home or do you buy it from a local eatery? In New York City, a sandwich (with a pickle and a bag of chips) will cost you about $8.00. A salad starts at about $5.00; the price increases depending on how many extras you toss in there. It can get pretty pricey over time. A possible solution? Lunch trucks and carts. [Above: The line for the Halal cart.]

Culture as Commodity: Investigations at an Ethnic Supermarket

One of my earliest posts talked about how food was a uniting force in an interfaith marriage. I want to return to this discussion on food today because food is one of easiest expressions of culture to export. When immigrants leave their homeland, they leave behind their networks, childhood homes, and all that is familiar—except food. Globalization has resulted in easy access to exotic spices, putting native dishes within reach for immigrant communities.

A Desi (meaning, of the subcontinent) supermarket opened in my neighborhood recently—it's the first of it's kind which makes it an exciting prospect next to Key Food and King Kullen (although the latter has a fairly impressive offering of "ethnic" products). Ethnic supermarkets can be a great opportunity for cultural exploration: a visit to one of these establishments can tell you much about the foods people eat and relate to, which in turn can be somewhat revealing about people themselves. This particular supermarket though doesn't limit itself to one culture—believe it or not, its sign proclaims that it has Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, Guyanese, Spanish, and American foods for sale. Diversity can be particularly revealing in this instance. The multitude of different cultural offerings can reveal a at least two interesting insights:

• First, the products can show us what Pakistanis, Indians, Bengalis, and Guyanese West Indians hold in common food-wise—given that they all share a common heritage.
• Second, the ownership is Bengali, so the products for sale can tell us how the other cultures are viewed by a particular immigrant group.

Image: Sign at the back of the grocery.

So let's take the first point, shall we? What do the products for sale tell us about commonalities between Pakistanis, Indians, Bengalis, and Guyanese West Indians?

Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh share close ties on the subcontinent. Though these nations are home to different societies, they share a cultural heritage cemented by history, geography, and climate. Social elements, such as diet and dress, were established centuries ago before these places existed separately when the people of the region determined strategies for managing daily life.  Guyanese West Indians hold this heritage in their history, but they have also been exposed to varying degrees of assimilation as both indentured laborers and voluntary immigrants. Despite the political, religious, cultural, and geographical differences that now separate these people, they share a food history.

Rice is a staple in Indian-based diets (and in the diets of many people around the world). Mannan has a respectable aisle of rices from various regions. Rice originated in South Asia and parts of Africa, however trade has spread rice cultivation throughout the world. It is a resilient species, and can be grown almost anywhere.

 Image: Rice Aisle.

Curry dishes are also very popular. Curry refers to the sauce that accompanies a dish, which is made from a combination of spices, including turmeric, cumin, coriander, and red pepper in addition to other spices that can change the character of the dish—not all curry dishes are spicy, for example. The practice of "currying" a dish has been widely exported, in part as a result of colonialism, resulting in many different adaptations of the base spices listed.

Image: A collection of Indian curries.

Image: Curries have spread through the world. Shown here: Jamaican curry (popular among West Indians)

Achars (pl.), or Indian pickles, chutneys, and pepper sauces are important condiments that have also survived and spread with colonialism and trade. They add a spicy or sweet addition to any dish, and some can even be eaten by themselves as a snack.

Image: Carrot pickles.

Image: Pepper sauces are particularly popular in the West Indies.

Food preparation techniques are also shared between these groups. Mannan carries an wide range of cooking implements, such as the tawah, which is used to prepare assorted flatbreads, known as roti. The dough for roti is rolled out on a chakla. Traditional chaklas are made from stone, but wooden ones have become fairly popular for their portability. The chakla provides a stable, even surface to work the dough on.

Image: Light iron tawah.

 

Image: Wooden chakla and rolling pin.

These similarities demonstrate an acknowledgment of a shared heritage. While these groups may not otherwise interact, in a foreign environment their shared histories and traditions bring them together in commerce.

Regarding the seond question: What does a Bengali-owned Pakistani, Indian, Guyanese, Spanish, and American grocery reveal about perceptions concerning others—namely the host society? It's an interesting revelation because 95% of the store is devoted to South Asian ethnic products. Therefore the "American" items they choose to sell must be significant. They tell us how American's are perceived. The biggest "American" aisle was stocked with assorted pastas and tomato-based sauces. Now this does not mean that all that Americans are perceived to eat is pasta and sauces, but it gives us the sense that the owners of this establishment and perhaps the patrons as well believe that this is what Americans would most likely be looking for if they entered this store seeking "American" products. Perhaps the idea is that some harried mom needs a quick dinner or a jar of sauce and can't make it to one of the other groceries which are farther away. They are marketing the product they think may sell.

 

Image: Assorted pastas in the "American" foods aisle.

 Image: Pasta accompaniments.

Multi-ethnic groceries are a goldmine for cultural information. The next time you're out and you come across one, don't hesitate to head in and browse. Pay attention to what's on the shelves and you'll learn something about your fellow shoppers. And your own supermarket, even if its a generic one may have some interesting truths to reveal—particularly if you have an ethnic representation in your neighborhood. Is there anything interesting on the shelves at your local grocery?