Excited
I remember when I was a kid, visiting Chinatown in Boston whenever my family would visit my aunt, uncle and cousins who lived in the area. My mother would do some shopping at a Chinese grocery store before we would head back to Western Massachusetts, as there were really not any big Chinese grocery stores at the time. What I most remember is seeing the fresh seafood at the tanks of water, as well as when a shopper wanted to buy fish, a fish butcher (is that even a word?) would take a live fish out of a tank, and pound the fish with a mallet until it was dead – something you didn’t see at your local Safeway. As Jennifer 8. Lee had said in an interview once, “Americans don’t like to be reminded that the food they are eating used to be alive.” Well, apparently Asians do, especially when it comes to fish, as reported in The Los Angeles Times’”At California’s Asian fish markets, freshness is everything“:
“…In Asian cuisine, live fish are a delicacy. Asian diners insist they can distinguish on the plate between a fish freshly plucked from a tank or stream and one previously gutted and languishing on ice… Instead, new immigrants kept demand high for the dozen California fish farmers who raise product for the state’s Asian customers. Small neighborhood markets catering to Asian tastes have expanded outside traditional Chinatowns to suburbs such as the Sunset District in San Francisco and Monterey Park in Los Angeles…According to several aqua farmers, the Asian appetite for finned fish — sturgeon, large-mouthed bass, tilapia, catfish, carp — comprises 70% of the estimated $50-million California aquaculture industry, not counting algae and shellfish. That’s a whopping 20 million pounds annually.”
The article goes on to profile The Fishery, a Central Valley aqua farm that’s one of a handful statewide catering to a unique niche: California’s Asian markets, where The Fishery delivers about a million pounds of fish annually. Most of the Chinese grocery stores in Boston’s Chinatown were relatively small and had a very “Mom-and-Pop” feel and weren’t necessarily convey a Starbuck’s quality of upscaleness or cleanliness.
Only until I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area did I come across Ranch 99, the super Asian grocery mega-store that is as large or larger than your traditional American grocer, where you can find any Asian food for home cooking. I haven’t been to Boston to check out Chinatown in a while,so maybe there are some Ranch 99 like places now.
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I remember about 10 years ago going to Taiwan Restaurant in Chinatown (long gone) and ordered a fresh crab in my newly learned Cantonese. A few minutes later she brought a dead crab out to my table with antennae still twitching. I realized she was doing it to prove to me the crab was fresh-killed. I chalked it up to cultural differences and enjoyed my meal (and it was good, too). Actually, I am fine with ordering the death of my dinner.
You may have seen/read the cow who gives permission to you to eat it in the late Douglas Adams's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series.
Good question. Their website calls them 99 Ranch, but, like you, I call it Ranch 99.
There's nothing better than fresh steamed fish, served Asian style!
Oh God I miss the fresh fish markets from the Bay Area. Living in Atlanta requires a good long drive in horrible traffic to find the large Asian markets. I cringe looking at the seafood in my local American markets, and going to the Super H mart (Korean super chain) near me is just slightly better. Growing up in the Bay Area, the availability of fresh live fish was taken for granted.
I like the places that also deep fry your fish for free upon request
As a former vegan, I still have issue with the way live fish is treated in most Asian markets. It's one thing to kill animals for food, it's another thing to have them suffer for hours/days in crowded tanks with no fresh water. I'll admit that fresh fish does taste better...I just wish they would give them more space or simply kill them and keep them on ice.
I remember about 10 years ago going to Taiwan Restaurant in Chinatown (long gone) and ordered a fresh crab in my newly learned Cantonese. A few minutes later she brought a dead crab out to my table with antennae still twitching. I realized she was doing it to prove to me the crab was fresh-killed. I chalked it up to cultural differences and enjoyed my meal (and it was good, too). Actually, I am fine with ordering the death of my dinner.
You may have seen/read the cow who gives permission to you to eat it in the late Douglas Adams's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series.
Good question. Their website calls them 99 Ranch, but, like you, I call it Ranch 99.
There's nothing better than fresh steamed fish, served Asian style!
Oh God I miss the fresh fish markets from the Bay Area. Living in Atlanta requires a good long drive in horrible traffic to find the large Asian markets. I cringe looking at the seafood in my local American markets, and going to the Super H mart (Korean super chain) near me is just slightly better. Growing up in the Bay Area, the availability of fresh live fish was taken for granted.
I like the places that also deep fry your fish for free upon request
As a former vegan, I still have issue with the way live fish is treated in most Asian markets. It's one thing to kill animals for food, it's another thing to have them suffer for hours/days in crowded tanks with no fresh water. I'll admit that fresh fish does taste better...I just wish they would give them more space or simply kill them and keep them on ice.
In Southern California it's 99 Ranch. In Northern California it's Ranch 99. Why IS that, anyway?
Psst..it's 99 Ranch :)
When I read the below statement I felt a little sad that Americans can't tell the difference in taste I mean i don't I know any Asians that can't tell a fresh fish from an old one. It all makes sense now as to why food is so bland and unimaginary for American food, they can't taste the difference between fresh food and a cardboard box.
u00e2u0080u009cu00e2u0080u00a6In Asian cuisine, live fish are a delicacy. Asian diners insist they can distinguish on the plate between a fish freshly plucked from a tank or stream and one previously gutted and languishing on iceu00e2u0080u00a6
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