Coconut Soda, and Other Mysteries

This appeared on Sunday, May 20, 2007

They say the difference between young people and old folks is the level of self-awareness one gathers as one gains in years. Perhaps it is the result of making mistakes over the years, seeing others do so, or just because we‘ve lived with ourselves for so long, but as we enter the second half of our lives we come to know better what makes us who we are.

So now that I‘ve reached that stage in life when people ask me how I‘m feeling because they want to know if the arthritis has kicked in yet, I want to let you know the one truth I am most certain about concerning myself.

That is that I should never be left alone in an ethnic grocery store with a pocketful of cash, or a working credit card.

The phrase "kid in a candy store" is as picture-perfect an image for me wandering the aisles of a Latino or Asian or Indian market as you are going to get. I put things in my shopping cart I‘ve never seen before, and buy way too many things I already have at home.

Consider: On a recent morning, as an excuse for research for this column, I drove over to the Qualy (I think they mean "Quality," but I could be wrong) Food Asian Market in Frazier, just to get the sense of some of the things one might find on the shelves of such a store. Just need to jot down a few names of things, I told myself. Be in and out in five minutes. Ten tops. Fifteen at the outside.

Half an hour later, I left with a shopping bag full of frozen shrimp springs rolls, two family-size tubes of wasabe paste, three bottles of chili-sesame oil, and two packages of Korean Pan Cakes, instructions: "1. Heat in toaster or oven until they are hot. 2. Eat with any kind of dish or butter or cheese." I like that — ”Eat with any kind of dish.“ Makes dinner preparation a snap.

I realize that this proclivity for purchasing exotic items is not altogether without its benefits. I‘ve discovered a lot of very good foods just by throwing things in the basket because they look interesting — soba noodles, chorizo sausage and gyoza of every description, for starters.

But there is also a part of me that simply revels in the wonder of these markets when everything is foreign, even the advertising posters on the walls, and yet located just down the street from me. I mean, what are dried olive kernels used for anyway? I haven‘t a clue, but there they are on the shelf at Qualy, right next to something called "Dried Lillium Lancifolum Thunb."

"Thunb?"

I‘d like someone familiar with ethnic foodstuffs and cooking to accompany me on my trips, just so I can ask them what you actually do with crispy soybean sauce, or chu hou sauce, or black fungus in a can. What are these odd looking strands of fiber packaged in cellophane in the noodle section of the store? What do Coco Rico Coconut Soda and Fried Round Gluten taste like?

Thanks goodness that when I left Qualy that Purvis Indian Market was closed, or I‘d still be there, wondering why they package chick peas in lychee syrup.