Chinese Pickles and Preserves

[liuzhou]

10 minutes ago, Anna N said:

I am not at all sure of the reliability of this source but it is an interesting read. 
Here.

 

“The COVID-19 outbreak has proven what everyone long suspected – that Chinese people are not fans of food in cans.

According to Daxue Consulting's data, in 2016, per capita consumption of canned products stood at six kilograms in China – just a fraction of the roughly 57 kilograms an EU resident went through over the same year and the whopping 92 kilograms an average American tucked into.”

 

 

Sounds about right

[liuzhou]

On 8/4/2021 at 7:49 PM, liuzhou said:

Only really fish and sea food; some sliced meats for hot pots. Maybe some dumplings. I'll take some pics next time in the supermarket.

 

@Anna N

Sorry, I did take the pics, but then forgot to  post them. Duh!

 

I apologise in advance for some of the photos. The lighting by the freezers is not conducive to arty pics.

 

 

When you enter the supermaret for the first time, you'd be forgiven for thinking they must have a lot of frozen stuff here. They certainly have a lot of freezer space, but when you look inside it rapidly becomes apparent that the choice is actually very limited. These two lines of freezers only contain industrially-made dumplings and frozen buns.

 

I never buy these and I can't work out who does. Hand made dumplings are available in store. They are frozen, but they are made daily but a young woman who stands beside the freezers making them in plain sight. While behind her, the in-house 'bakery' makes fresh steamed buns.

 

Freshly hand-made, but frozen jiaozi.

 

In another shorter line of freezers are these frozen "steaks". They are very low quality and 99% come with a hideous black pepper sauce, which everyone in China thinks is essential with steaks, as that is the only sauce foreigners eat!

 

 

Moo!

 

Steak and scallion pancakes?

 

Then there is the fish and other seafood section.

 

墨鱼 (mò yú) - Cuttlefish

 

鲍鱼 (bào yú) abalone

 

Why anyone would buy the above two, is beyond me.  They have both fresh cuttlefish and abalone a few steps away.

 

鱼肝 (鱼肝 ) - Fish livers. The fish is unidentified.

 

Then we have the unwrapped freezer-burnt trash.

 

Lumps of unidentified  fish

 

Unwrapped freezer-burnt octopus. Yes, they have fresh octopus, too.

 

They usually have various types of shrimps and prawns, also just thrown into the freezers without wrappings, but that freezer was being cleaned, so I couldn't picture them.

 

Then the fake fish. Crab balls and lobster balls which are devoid of any crab or lobster. All surimi.

Elsewhere is a small freezer full of this thinly sliced lamb and beef for hotpots. I do occasionally buy the lamb.

 

Beef and lamb

 

And finally 'ice cream' or, at  least, that's what they call it. Chinese ice cream is terrible. It's a bad state of affairs when the best ice-cream in town is from McDonald's! That said, one different supermarket very occasionally has Magnums, which ain't bad.

 

 

And that, really is it. Again, people probably go home and eat any frozen product that noon or evening, never troubling their own freezers. And with this being the supermarket with the slowest check-outs in the known universe, your loot is probably going to be thawed out before you get time to unbag it anyway.

 

Edited August 12, 2021 by liuzhou (log)

[Anna N]

9 hours ago, liuzhou said:

Sorry, I did take the pics, but then forgot to  post them. Duh!

I really appreciate the effort this must’ve taken. Most definitely a huge cultural canyon exists. The only things I have ever seen in a supermarket freezer that were not packaged was some salted cod and some king crab legs. While we certainly have those long open freezers, most supermarkets now have the tall cabinet freezers with glass doorsas well. 
The assortment of frozen food here is quite phenomenal. From appetizers to desserts the options are almost boundless. 
That does not mean they are all good!

[Tropicalsenior]

On 7/26/2021 at 8:09 AM, liuzhou said:

Nothing easier

I'm happy.

[mudbug]

"Why anyone would buy the above two, is beyond me"

 

Because depending on where you are in the world, not everything that is on "display" as "fresh" is fresh.

 

As with farmed produce, flash frozen can often be more fresh than what you see in the produce section due to processing, transportation, storage, display time, handling, etc.

 

Flash frozen is standard and often required even for Japanese chefs to ensure freshness and safety unless of course you are at the Tsukiji Market in Japan.

[liuzhou]

 

 

On 11/16/2023 at 12:54 AM, mudbug said:

"Why anyone would buy the above two, is beyond me"

 

Because depending on where you are in the world, not everything that is on "display" as "fresh" is fresh.

 

As with farmed produce, flash frozen can often be more fresh than what you see in the produce section due to processing, transportation, storage, display time, handling, etc.

 

Flash frozen is standard and often required even for Japanese chefs to ensure freshness and safety unless of course you are at the Tsukiji Market in Japan.

 

The fresh food in that supermarket is very fresh.  You can see, smell and taste the difference. The Chinese shopper is fanatical about freshness. Fish and other seafood  is almost always bought live. That is one important reason why there is so little frozen food available. Are you suggesting flash frozen than live?

 

Japanese restaurants in many countries are legally required to freeze fish to be sold raw on sushi or as sashimi, not to preserve it but to kill parasites.

 

Edited August 3 by liuzhou (log)

[chromedome]

12 hours ago, liuzhou said:

The Chinese shopper is fanatical about freshness. Fish and other seafood  is almost always bought live. That is one important reason why there is so little frozen food available.

 

I live in Canada's lobstering heartland, and the lobster industry has devoted a LOT of time to expanding its market in China. Aside from sporadic geopolitical headwinds, one of the biggest problems they've faced - according to an interview I read with one of the board's marketers - was exactly that preference for buying live. It took them a long time, and a lot of cooking demos/sample product, to convey the idea that a product could be frozen but still a premium offering.

[liuzhou]

1 hour ago, chromedome said:

one of the biggest problems they've faced - according to an interview I read with one of the board's marketers - was exactly that preference for buying live.

 

Yes. Some of the lobsters I can buy find here are frozen Canadian, but most of them are from New Zealand and they are shipped by air both live and frozen.

But lobster, fresh or live, is very much an expensive luxury and therefore a tiny niche market.