I have already mentioned that the
variety of food on offer in US supermarkets is outstanding. Whereas in my Belgian or Italian years I have memories of a couple of racks with "International food", where you could find some Indian, Mexican and Asian products or Italian pesto, US supermarkets' offer is limitless. There are two reasons: first and foremost the fact that American cuisine is a collage of different cuisines and different ethnic groups. So, the "international" products are not confined to a couple of racks, but they actually
are the entire supermarket. This results in an orgy of products that - if you are crazy like me - is a feast for your senses. I mean, who had ever heard of Kabocha squash while living in Belgium or Italy? I most certainly hadn't.
The second reason has - again - to do with the concept of personal choice that Americans built their Nation upon. They want to be able to choose. And the customer service is outstanding.
My wife disagree with me on the quality of produce on display here. She says that Belgian supermarkets had better vegetables. I say she is crazy (and Belgian): Belgian produce suffered from the lack of sun, so it was almost always tasteless. In spite of our disagreement on the quality of the produce, we agree on the fact that we are eating vegetables that we had never heard before.
Parsnips? I had to go and look in a dictionary what the Italian name for this white, sweet carrot was (
pastinaca, if you are wondering). It turned out that they used to be famous in Italy and in the rest of Europe until the 18th century, when they started to be used as animal food. Apparently over the past five years they started to become trendy again in certain parts of Italy as part of a rediscovery of
cucina povera to the use of turists: so now restaurant owners can charge you 10 Euros for a parsnip soup made with scrap (tasty scrap at that) that were fed to pigs and sows.
And greens (collard greens, mustard greens), greens, and greens everywhere you go during Fall and Winter. I like to take these greens and use them in traditional Italian recipes, modifying the flavors. Recently I made a collard green, bacon and butternut squash risotto that came out fantastic, if I do say so myself.
Of course there are times when I have issues with the ingredients. For instance the clams that are sold in Chicago supermarkets are the gigantic variety that dwarfs the little clams we use in the Mediterranean for our linguine alle vongole or soups. I mean, look at this photo: the clam is twice as big as the mussel. It is a monster! The texture is also very different. So I was really happy when I stumbled into Japanese clams, in a Japanese-only big supermarket, that looked identical to the Italian clams. I bought them (cheap) and made spaghetti alle vongole that were identical to the ones I used to eat in Italy.
This is why I love this place, foodwise. The choice is gigantic, and the limits are set by your capabilities and interest. Now go and try and make a chili con carne in Italy or Belgium. Good luck finding the right ingredients.
tuscanfoodie
1 comments:
I was in New York on a business trip recently and even in a smallish Morton Williams in Manhattan, I was shocked at the variety of food, especially the beer, bread, the nuts, and the yogurt. There were at least 10 kinds of Greek yogurt alone! Of course, the tofu, fish, and sake in Ishikawa prefecture can't be beat, but there's just nothing here like the American level of choice in urban and large suburban supermarkets. (Except maybe one ridiculously large supermarket in a department store in Chiba where all the business conference centers are.)
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