mongo_jones

yes, and is there anything more repellent than commercial "extra pulp" variant o.j? it is as though they take the usual crap o.j and dump 2 lbs of pulp that's being lying around in a dumpster somewhere into it and seal the carton. well, that probably is what they do. i remember reading a nutritionist on the subject of o.j a while ago--i believe he said people should throw away the juice and eat the pulp.

it wasn't peeing i was thinking about... and brooks, i think i might have participated in that thread you linked to and mentioned this there too. this just seemed like another apposite place to ask the question.

in high school i used to top butterscotch ice-cream with mustard. started doing it to get a rise out of friends but then actually started liking it.

so it is nationally available?

i'm not denying the validity of your experience. however, since the price differentials noted are not unique just to that combination of korean/mainstream in new jersey (?) i'm just adding another experience alongside it. the question is: which is the exception and which the rule? perhaps it has to do with the concentration of the main target audience. i don't know if you've ever been to koreatown in l.a but at any given point in the larger korean grocery stores (often as large as individual ralph's or albertson's) you'll see maybe 3 non-koreans shopping. aurora, the suburb of denver where komart is located, is also a korean neighbourhood. and as i think about it there's a pretty fancy indian grocery on pioneer blvd. in artesia outside l.a (l.a's "little india") as well. and, of course, the 99 ranch market on west valley blvd. in rosemead (san gabriel valley) may be the largest grocery store of any kind i've been to in the l.a area. yet the fruits, vegetables and fish at all these places is, as i said, superior in quality, price and diversity than at mainstream groceries. the korean and chinese populations in l.a are not going to stand for low quality or freshness. perhaps it is a different story where you are with different demographics, expectations etc.

lower standards as far as freshness/quality/etc not true of any korean (or indian, for that matter) grocery stores i've shopped at in los angeles or denver/boulder. fruits and vegetables are significantly fresher (especially fruits) and often much cheaper. you also get a much more expansive selection of fish (not just a predominance of filets of various kinds of bland white-fish)--whole mackerel, pomfret, carp etc. for much the same price that trout or catfish sell at in large chain stores. and no qualms about quality there either: recently bought 3 plump mackerels from komart for $1.79/lb--cooked the first one today and it was excellent; their pomfret has also always been excellent ($4.49/lb). and komart (like all the big stores in koreatown in l.a) is nicely airconditioned in the summer and heated in the winter. indian stores on the other hand are usually fairly dingy but the vegetables and fruit available there are always much tastier and cheaper than the big stores. i would never buy okra from a large grocery chain.

Just so you know, Oasis is no more. (It closed down at the end of 2002) really? i had some very nice oasis scarab red with dinner last night. out of a bottle. did someone else buy their operations? or was i served 2 year old beer?

wish i'd taken the camera on the winter trip to gariahat in calcutta, to i.n.a market and the chittaranjan park fish market in delhi and the tuesday haat in sector 25 in noida. though actually my parents tell me the chittaranjan park (the bengali dominated locality in south delhi) fish market has been completely altered. it is no longer the chaotic, informal market it used to be with makeshift counters and fish everywhere--now they have fixed stalls and pukka walls and everything. who knows, perhaps it has a new charm of some kind?

I'm glad someone else besides me understands that "The Valley" is not part of the US. ha ha --i mean oops, what a giveaway!

(edited: couldn't get quotes to work for some reason so have italicized quotes instead and put quotes within quotes in bold) shocker, thanks for the continued engagement. my comments/responses below: though your article may not have the explicit concerns that bhabha works with throughout his work, there's a parallel undercurrent in both. from bhabha: "An important feature of colonial discourse is its dependence on the concept of 'fixity' in the ideological construction of otherness." and from your piece: "but since no one is asking these people to be the subjects of their own food stories the other continues to be fixed, identified and made knowable in familiar ways." the concerns/buzzwords of the post-colonial movement pop up all over the place. but then you drew attention to that yourself. as i've said i'm not attempting to hide my involvement in postcolonial studies--but even within my areas of interest bhabha is but one of many people. just because he refers to "fixity" and i used the word "fixed" in similar ways in particular aspects of our arguments doesn't mean that my argument is particularly indebted to bhabha's thought; to tell the truth i don't find him very useful. but all of this is a minor part of our own debate so on to more substantive points: it's an oft-repeated joke in the post-colonial studies world that you can debunk anyone and everyone's viewpoint by saying it's reductionist and/or essentialist. which is true. but also easy. and to what end? it makes for a fun game, but from whence comes the knowledge then, the understanding? your prime quote about the fruit from gold's backyard purportedly contains everything troubling about his writing. but how and why? there's nothing essentialist about his musing. he spins a little analogy and it drives you mad? i don't get it. i've gone back and re-read my piece and i don't believe i call gold reductionist or essentialist anywhere in it--or even indirectly imply it. and the part about the fruit tree was cited largely as a facetious aside to point out gold's love for his own voice (a flaw i indicated i have as well). allow me to quote the relevant passage from the piece: you don’t have to be in love with your own voice as much as i am to recognize that gold is in love with his own voice and likes saying nice sounding things with it. take, for instance, this excerpt from feb 2002: “our tree may not produce the tastiest grapefruit — in fact the juice from the grapefruit that has not overwintered is entirely too bitter to drink — but there is a tang, an antique pungency to the lumpy second-year fruit that I have experienced nowhere else in the world, the horticultural equivalent of a browning souvenir post card from the 1914 rose parade.” i humbly rest this part of my case. in fact i think i should be able to rest my entire case based just on that excerpt but allow me to continue with this unhealthily obsessed diatribe. i say that one of the minor things that annoys me about gold is his preciousness and then move on. the substantive analysis (such as it is) comes after this. so i'm not sure why you're citing this as an example of my using what you say are postcolonialist strategies of debunking via the shorthand of dubbing someone essentialist or reductionist. you said you don't think of him as the great homogenizer. but you focus on the ways in which he does not, to you, comprehend things in a non-homogenous fashion: "the world is nothing if not heterogeneous" i'd be curious to see the specific reductionist evidence about his overgeneralization about south indian cuisine that you mention in passing. for i think it's the only quantifiable evidence, and it's barely accounted for. i'm not saying he hasn't been wrong before. i'm simply observing that your piece hinges on that fact, and there's little evidence supplied to support your argument. again, my saying that "the world is nothing if not heterogeneous" is not a direct critique of gold. at this point in the piece i've moved away from specific analysis of gold to talking about the larger mainstream cultural narrative that i see his alleged alt writing participating in. if you'll again allow me to quote my piece in context: first what i find disturbing about all of this is the cultural attitudes that drive it. the third world is of course big business in the u.s—whether it be in the form of cheap labor on banana republic shirts or in marked up exotica at pier 1 imports or cost-plus—but the attitudes to its food in some ways make visible the literal consumption of the third world by the first. gold’s journalism participates in a cultural logic in whose conclusion the first world expert becomes the true keeper of third world “authenticity”. and then the truth of course is that culture is always hybrid and at some level untranslatable—the driving impulse in the cosmopolitan consumerism that jonathan gold’s columns embody is to deny this, to claim, through benign, banal interest, mastery over the foreign. a translator, be she a critic, a translator of poems, or a u.n interpreter, knows that they exist not at a point of knowing entirely both languages with which they deal but at a point of incommensurability. a good translator i think is one who doesn’t just enable conversation between different cultures but who in so doing maintains this sense of incommensurability, who resists the totalizing urge to create transparency where none exists. the alternative is a global banal. one in which the bourgeois consumer constantly posits “authentic” culture on the fringes against a homogeneous mainstream but remains blind to the fact that the cultural forces of globalism that run through the drive to identify and “know” alternative/other cultures are the very same ones that drive the homogeneous mainstream. it is only after this in my concluding paragraph that i say: the world is nothing if not heterogeneous—to try to render it knowable through food is of course a lot better than rendering it knowable through military conquest, and people who like to eat food from different parts of the world are probably healthier, more tolerant people than those who don’t but let’s not make the mistake of substituting some sort of hip cook’s tour of the international food court for a true acceptance and celebration of difference. i'm not saying that gold explicitly comes out anywhere and says that indian or chinese or salvadorean cuisine is homogeneous. i'm saying this is the impulse that drives the market as a whole--it is easier to sell shirts and curries this way. these may seem like minor distinctions i'm making here but they're important ones. and moving on to your final questions: if he's so awful at what he does, how then would you recommend people to write about cuisines which they were not born into or are unfamiliar with? i completely agree with your statements about "the truth of course is that culture is always hybrid and at some level untranslatable." does that mean then that writers should not bother at all because they can't possibly honor the infinitesimal variety and fluidity of culture? these are very tough questions and i don't know that i necessarily have the answers to them. to take the first one first: i'm not saying he's completely awful. he is a very good writer, knows l.a well and has a genuine interest in promoting ethnic cuisines. these are all good things and i note them at the start of my piece. i probably should make this clearer. however, despite prose quality and good intentions i think he unwittingly propogates the "keeper of the world" mentality i decry. i do know that i don't like gold's approach of presenting himself as an expert on every cuisine he writes about--since as a number of us here can very easily demonstrate he is not. i think what he and others in his position should do is adopt a more humble stance. and i hope i haven't given the impression that i think only people originally from a particular culture should be able to write about it--there's plenty of evidence to the contrary on egullet (including many in my own stomping-ground, the india forum). as for the question of translation: no, i don't think we should stop attempting to translate just because the world is finally untranslatable. but it is the parts that don't translate that are finally "culture". everything else is susceptible to the mcdonaldsization of the world. i do think we should not cover this important untranslatability up by pretending that everythingis completely translatable and intelligible. people like gold, and i'm sure in other contexts, i as well, give in to this temptation (where we recognize it) because it becomes the source of our authority. after all if our guide can't speak authoritatively why are we following him around? this is an unsettling idea for both guides and their clients. and if i may come at this question of translation a little differently/obliquely: the late indian poet and translator a.k ramanujan once said in the foreword to one of his major translations (of the kannada novel samskara by u.r anantamurthy) that a good translation is one that does not seek to translate the text into the reader's language but one that translates the reader into the original language. of course there's different things involved in translating literature and in translating food from one culture to another but insofar as his advice applies to food it would apply not just to food-writers like gold but also chefs and even people like me, who at a much lower level, may find themselves being set up or tempted to set themselves up as translators of a different kind. i hope i'm doing a better job of explaining my problems with gold (and the larger cultural narrative i see behind him) in this conversation than i evidently did in the longer piece. forgive me for going on rather a lot. i don't know how interesting this is to the forum at large--if you like we can continue this backchannel. this conversation started off a little sassy on my part, so i wanted to say thanks for engaging in this dialogue, mongo jones. i think it's a tricky subject worth butting heads over, and i admire your passion about it. ah, don't worry about the sass. i'm the last person on egullet you should worry about offending. and as for the passion it comes from a realization that i too am implicated in these kinds of narratives (the piece was originally written 2 years ago--i haven't revised it since but my thinking hasn't remained static). i have egullet to thank in large part for helping me think this stuff, and my own investments in it, through a little better. though i'm not sure that everyone who's encountered me here in debates on these issues is quite so appreciative. i look forward to hearing more from you on this or on other topics. regards, mongo

so jschyun informs us. i think the allegation about woo lae oak that i asked about applied to the westside branch--they couldn't get away with that kind of crap in koreatown; and in any case they may have discontinued the practice (if indeed they ever had it). free, constantly-refilled banchan seems an integral part of korean dining to me.

on the sichuan peppercorn thread i made reference to the san gabriel valley near los angeles as the ground-zero of chinese immigration and cuisine in north america. here's an article from 1999 in the atlantic--i apologize if it is has been linked to and discussed here before. it verifies that the area has the largest immigrant chinese population in the u.s. more importantly it illustrates why anyone in the u.s who is interested in experiencing a full range of chinese cuisines but cannot go to china should plan a trip to l.a http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99jan/chinese.htm

i think it may be more interesting/revealing to look at the patterns of immigration in los angeles' san gabriel valley--the home of, as far as i know, the largest population of expatriate chinese outside the u.s, and definitely the most varied and best chinese restaurants. it may be hard for new yorkers to accept this but new york is not ground zero for chinese food in the u.s anymore.

wasn't it woo lae oak that committed the cardinal sin of making patrons pay for banchan? or am i making that up? if true, it should be closed, razed to the ground and the earth plowed with salt.

internet cafe schminternet cafe--shurely naropa could open an extension of their jack kerouac school of disembodied poetics in dushanbe--they wouldn't even need to send anyone or anything.

i think it can be done easily if you go the indian vegetarian route (assuming you already have some rice, oil, salt, chilli powder, turmeric etc. laid by). of course you'll have to shop at an indian store where things are cheaper. buy a medium packet of red beans a small packet of channa dal 3 red onions 4 tomatoes 1 bunch cilantro a head of garlic a 4 inch piece chunk of ginger 3 potatoes 1 bunch spinach/fenugreek leaves i'm pretty sure i could get all of that from my local indian grocery for $10. the beans will be enough for 3 days worth of lunches and dinner; ditto for the channa dal. make a potato dish to accompany the dal or the rajma with rice and the greens the other. the onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger and cilantro will be enough for making everything. oh right, after purchasing everything go to the india forum for recipes edit to add: on $20 a week you can eat very well indeed on indian vegetarian. as long as you have a start-up fund of about $30 for stocking staples.

Tilt. I do. I tuck cilantro seed into any spare inch of dirt in the garden. I can never have too much. ------------------ Peanut butter and tunafish sandwiches. ditto the best part about dumping a ton of it on top of a lightly flavored chicken curry or dal is direct access to some crunchy cilantro by itself as well as for the aroma it imparts to the gravy. perhaps there's some correlation between liking cilantro neat and "enjoying" "last day at marienbad"? (yes, ggmora, i have a long memory.)

a small green cardamom pod probably contains about 10-15 small seeds--i can go upstairs and crack a few open to verify the count if you really want me to. but the pod is what really scents certain indian rice dishes (though you don't eat the pods themselves).

i retract all my bleary-eyed, first cup of tea in the morning attempts at cracking wise. (edit to add: especially since if i'm not careful i might piss someone off and get fingered to do a blog myself) carry on.

i was looking at the pictures from early in the blog--missed most of it as it was happening in real time. some other blogs have featured fairly elaborate meals. i don't object by any means. so, has anyone done a study on how many days into the average egullet foodblog the meals go from elaborate to whatever's easy?

if cilantro tastes like soap wouldn't the appropriate solution be to start eating soap?

Although the ice takes up space, I for one am glad about the ice. I like a cold bevvy, not room-temp water. yes, but is it not possible to serve us chilled water which would be easier to drink without 5000 icecubes jostling against our teeth like something that jostles against something else? (too early in the morning for clever similes).

hey i can't speak for the mexicans but we indians are highly aware that we are the trendsetters for the saarc region. well, the pakistanis, bangladeshis and sri lankans don't care, but what would the bhutanese, the nepalis and the maldivians do if we relaxed our vigil?

has anyone done a study on how much higher the average egullet foodblogger's grocery bill gets in the week they post their blog? or do you all eat such fancy meals every day even without the pressure to post pictures?

my question (asked by every guest i've ever had visiting from india): why do american restaurants put sooooo much ice in the drinking water? even in winter. and is the man in the men's room in certain places really there to hand you a towel or is the restaurant worried that unwatched we might pee in the sink? and does he have to eat a sandwich while i do my business?