I like walking tours. Often, I try to find one or two
(guided or self-guided) when I visit cities for the first time. So why not
check out my own hometown? Saturday found me on the Lower East Side, exploring
parts of Chinatown that were new to me, under the auspices of Two Bridges
Neighborhood Council and their free NeighborFood tour. It was a variation of a tour
they have where they show how, by buying locally, a meal for four can be put
together for $10. On that tour, there is a cooking demo, as well—ours was just
the tour.
Our guide offered well-presented information about the
neighborhood and the way it’s changed, for both better and worse. It’s a mostly
lower-income spot that recently lost its Pathmark supermarket. As a result,
some of the residents, including seniors, need to find a new way of shopping.
Along the way, we learned that most of the Asian population speaks Mandarin and
Cantonese and, more recently, Fujinese. As a result, there is often little
interaction—vocal or even eye contact—between the cashier and the customer in
many markets. In some of the markets where a family runs the business, there
will be more interaction.
Additionally, stores owners rent out the sidewalk space in
front of their store to individual vendors. So, your items chosen on the sidewalk
get paid for out there, and if you go into the store for additional purchases,
those get paid for inside. Haggling/bargaining rarely occurs. On the street we
saw bitter melon, lychees, dragon fruit, and many more that I didn’t recognize
(and don’t remember). I took a few notes, but that was difficult, as we were
walking and the sidewalks were somewhat crowded on a Saturday morning.
Inside the larger markets, we saw water spinach, winter
melon, and mangosteens. (Interesting aside—our guide told us that the
mangosteen was a favorite of Queen Victoria and that she would bestow
knighthood if someone were to bring her the fruit. When checking online for the
writing of this post, I came across another rumor that said she would pay 100
pounds for the fruit.) And we saw seafood. Live fish, live crabs, whole fish on
ice, shrimp, mussels, and clams. This was not your mainstream Chinatown; the tour
was limited to the Two Bridges (Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges) area, with the
goal of supporting local merchants and keeping spending dollars in the local
area.
One of the stops along the tour was a family-run business.
There, according to our guide, there would be (and was) more interaction and
those types of places will often supply more information as requested by
shoppers. And we were treated to dragon fruit, which has a taste reminiscent of
kiwi, although I sensed a more floral flavor. The outside is pinkish, with
scale-like nodes while the inside flesh is white, with tiny black seeds. The
fruit is cut into slices and eaten out of hand by peeling the skin away (very
easy to do) and eating the flesh. It’s helpful to have a napkin handy. Once
again, there were lots of items on the shelves that I couldn’t make heads or
tails of, but I did by a small jar of bamboo shoots in chili oil. I haven’t
tried them yet but I think they’ll be a nice addition to my next stir fry.
Our last stop of the day (and the tour was a pleasant 90
minutes long) was a fish store where we saw most of the aforementioned seafood
as well as—live frogs! I’m somewhat adventurous but I don’t think I’ll be
cooking frog anytime soon.
So, I learned a bit more about a part of town that
I’ve only been to and through a few times, and I learned more about the culture
of the people who live and work there, too.
ConcertMeister
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