cook
Tells a story
Home
Japanese Grocery Shopping - Los Angeles
| Posted on December 16, 2009 at 11:04 AM |
Labels in English and Labels in Japanese
It hardly ever rains in California except on the day you plan a Japanese grocery shopping tour. Despite the bad weather, all twelve people who signed up for the tour braved the slippery roads to come shopping with me last Saturday.
Marukai Mart is a giant Japanese supermarket in Torrance that has everything from housewares to sashimi-grade fish. When I bring people from Japan to this place, they say it's better stocked with Japanese ingredients than many markets in Japan. Lots of good stuff.
The Houseware section was our first stop. Everyone got to do a little Chrismas shopping. Agnes bought two nice Japanese pickle presses for her relatives. I can't live without a pickle press. Helen, Mel and Sherie were interested in the cast iron Sukiyaki hot pot . I blogged about Sukiyaki just the other day. It's a popular all season nabe. If you don't own a sukiyaki hot pot, any cast iron pot or skillet will do but make sure you have about 3-inches in depth. The Lodge cast iron skillet is my other sukiyaki pan.
When we got to the produce section, Ian took out his long grocery list. Everyone complimented on his beautiful handwriting. Ined and Nancy wanted to get the ingredients to make Kinpira Gobo and Lotus root. Some produce were clearly marked in English, some were not. This inconsistency can be problematic to shoppers who don't read Japanese or are not familiar with the ingredients. While it was easy to locate the lotus root, the burdock was hiding in the corner, not clearly marked. One thing that surprised us all was the package of California shitake mushrooms that were labeled product of California, yet they were grown in China. What does that mean? Another mushroom had packaging codes that looked like something NASA would use. I like to get locally grown mushrooms from the farmers market whenever possible but I buy the organic shimeji and enoki mushrooms at the Japanese market where they can always be found fresh.
We spent a good chunk of our time looking at basic Japanese seasonings - soysauce, konbu, dried mushrooms and bonito flakes, sweet sake, and miso - ingredients we used at the Hot Pot workshops. The miso section felt like alien territory to many because very few of the brands were marked in English. Some miso was Dashi Miso, which contains soup stock ingredients - dried konbu and bonito flakes. You don't want that if you are making your own stock. It would be helpful if someone did little notes next to the various types of miso like they do in wine shops.
We checked all the New Year good luck foods, which symbolize abundance, purity, longevity, etc. - fish cakes, fish eggs, mochi, beans, chestnuts, braised sardines, herring eggs, etc. Many Japanese don't bother making these traditional New Year's dishes any more and buy them instead. Most contain food colorings and preservatives so I stay away from them. Why not make one good luck food at home? That should bring plenty of good luck.
The fish section at Marukai is huge. They have everything from sashimi grade tuna, octopus, tai, sea urchin, yellowtail, squid, eel, cod, salmon, etc. Fish is tricky to buy these days. I love fish but there are certain fish I am not buying at the moment. Blue fin Tuna being one of them. It's good to check what is on the Monterey Bay Acquarium green list to be aware of seafood that is good for you and good for the oceans. Jonathan bought some dried sardines . When I said you can eat them whole from head to tail including the guts, someone in the group turned the other way. Sardines are good source of calcium. I usually fry them in a dry frying pan until they get a little toasty. They are chewy and flavorful. Jonathan said the sardines reminded him of the ones he had in Italy. They were deep fried and served wrapped in a newspaper. Sounded delicious.
In the rice section, we found a variety of short grain rice both California and Japanese grown. Brown rice, white rice, and some rice that was milled in ways to retain its rice germ - Haiga-mai-type. Everyone wanted to know what type of rice I eat at home. I fluctuate from brown rice to Haiga mai to white rice but my favorite is brown rice. Sometimes I add mixed grains to my white rice.
The final stop was the sake section. Marukai had a good selection of sake and shochu. Revis picked up a bottle of Kurosawa. Again the labels were mostly in Japanese. What is junmaishu? What is Genshu? The bottles were placed side by side without enough explanation. We needed a sake steward to help us.
I learned a lot on this grocery shopping tour. We have a long ways to go with Japanese foods. The imported food items need better identification and labeling. The people who work at the Japanese markets could be more informed and helpful. I am going to do regular shopping tours to help break this barrier. As far as this day was concerned, everyone bought a bagful or two of Japanese groceries. The weather cleared up. A bunch of us went to get some fresh soba at Otafuku. It was a fun day. For those who missed my tour, I hope you wil join me next time!
Categories: Workshops
Post a Comment
Oops!
The words you entered did not match the given text. Please try again.
0 Comments
Categories
Recent Postings
0 comments
1 comment
0 comments
0 comments
Oops!
Oops, you forgot something.