The Patel Brothers grocery store was very authentic to me. They had fruits and vegetables ive never seen before which made me take my phone out and google them. Towards the back of the store the wall was covered in spices most of them iv’e also never heard of or they were just called something different but once I translated them I kind of knew what they were. Finding things that I never seen or heard of was easy. I believe out of all the grocery stores we went to this semester this was the most authentic one. The labels on all the products seemed like they received all the items from India itself. I don’t believe I found that many items that we can get in any American grocery store. One interesting thing I found was something called Ghee or what we call clarified butter. It stood out to me because they were on large glass jars and had a weird yellowish color to it. Iv’e cooked with clarified butter before but never seen them sold like that. I learned that ghee is used a lot in Indian cooking. Over all I enjoyed the grocery store.
Culinary Tourism Fall 2018
Exploring New York's Exciting Food Landscape
I completely agree that this grocery store was packed with authentic goodies! Even their selection in their refrigerated section was very unknown to me- which most grocery stores have similar products. Even the produce section had things I’ve never seen such as tindora, which was a small green gourd that resembled a small cucumber. The finding of the yak cheese was also shocking!
I completely agree that this grocery store was packed with authentic goodies! Even their selection in their refrigerated section was very unknown to me- which most grocery stores have similar products. Even the produce section had things I’ve never seen such as tindora, which was a small green gourd that resembled a small cucumber. The finding of the yak cheese was also shocking!
When we walked into the grocery store, it already gave me a vibe of being in India. The first thing I saw was lots of sweets treats packed; it felt like they were going to celebrate something soon. There was a big selection of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as frozen and dry products. I like the way that the grocery store is meeting all people’s necessities, such as people who have no time to cook and cannot affort to cook. Also, there is a lot of variety of food that you can choose from, for example there is a big variety of rice, snacks, and other items. I belive that this grocery store can meet anybody’s needs.
The Patel Brothers is a big supermarket that specializes in South Asian products. I have been here once before out of curiosity but i did not really explore the products. On this field trip i had the opportunity to learn about a culture that I am very unfamiliar with. Many of their products are vegetarian since many Indians are vegetarians. Cow is a sacred animal in the culture which is why many of their products are halal and they use ghee in their cooking. What i noticed is that many of their starch products such as pastas are made out of chickpeas. We spent a lot of time in this market and have found many unfamiliar products. Even Professor Krondl was stunned to find yak cheese! As for the sweet shop/restaurant we visited, I was not a fan. I am sure there are way better bakeries to find these ethnic goods.
To Nick’s comments. Sadly, no. I’ve tried the Indian sweets all over the neighborhood trying recapture what I tasted in India and there’s nothing that comes close. But there are two additional issues here. One is that the flavor of Indian sweets is very specific to the culture and if you don’t grow up with it you may not “get it.” The other is that because so many of the sweets are made with milk, they don’t taste that great refrigerated (think how much better cheese tastes at room temperature) and they are often not especially fresh (again think of a 3-day old pastry).
I wanted to buy the ghee so badly! I saw an instragram food recipe video where the person used ghee as part of the recipe. Without me seeing it at the supermarket first, I would of never knew about ghee. Further online research shows since ghee is clarified butter without the milk solids, this would be a better alternative to butter to people that are lactose intolerant. Go Ghee!