EXOTIC FOODS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 1, 2 January 1936, Page 12

EXOTIC FOODS

NEW YORK'S MAEKETS

RARE DELICACIES

"Shark?" queries the fish dealer. "No, ho shark. But I could get it for you. Do you like shark?" He has plenty of devilfish today, however, and, nestling cosily among them, a repellent little purple object, which one does not need to have eaten to know for an octopus. "I know," he says, apologetically, misinterpreting the appraisal, "I know it's a small one."

Many exotic foods are to be found in New York's markets and food stores, from the Russian caviar at 11 dollars (about £2 ss) a pound, delicate China teas at fabulous prices, and cocks' combs, and passion fruit'in jars, purveyed by midtown shops, to tha humbler but equally foreign sunflower seeds, millet and dried beans, the pungent goats', milk cheeses, pickled vine leaves, dried olives, sour dark loaves, and thin unleavened bread from the desert, found in dark little shops under the elevated. Some of the delicacies around town are retailed only at prices relatively high for the average pocketbook, say* a writer in the "New York Times." There are Irish hams, herrings from the Baltic, honey from Syria, and olive oil from Palestine; liver pastes and mushrooms simmered in butter, giant strawberries soaked in old brandy, cheeses, jellies, and sauces from France, Hungary, and Italy; there is oatmeal from Scotland and marmalade of bitter oranges from England. There are a hundred other delicacies for lordly palates. The big bunches of melting Muscat grapes from English hothouses, the plump, fresh figs from California, delicately scented quinces and Spanish melons, are few and expensive in the market now. In carefully insulated layers, Belgian endive—"packed like diamond necklaces," as one market man observes—reach only a few prosperous tables. Fresh dates, rushed right off the Arizona trees, will be in the shops any day, at fancy prices. But all the market novelties are not in th« upper brackets of cost. FKUITS AND VEGETABLES. Many vegetables and fruits little used in domestic menus a decade ago have now become commonplace in the average city market. Okra, yams, Jerusalem artichokes, red bananas, broccoli, avocados, pink grapefruit, even the pomegranate—some of them rarities a few years ago—are familiar in season and reasonably priced. But the expensive food markets—or the pushcarts—still- monopolise the delicious papaya, its golden fruit with little black seeds full of pepsin; the sapodilla, and the mangoes, which vary in season from the plump improved varieties to the stringy kind tasting like concentrated turpentine. Plantains, looking like over-sized bananas, are more frequently found south of Harlem than they used to be, and very nice the fartiily finds them, sliced thin and fried, sometimes first dipped in sugar. But the nutty flavour of the dasheen is still better known to West Indian palates, Florida-groWn though it is, and the big roots are sliced and sold by the- pound under the elevated trades of upper Park Avenue.

Time and distance lend zest to the epicure's search. He knows his way around the fish markets as well a3 among the fruit and vegetable stalls. The true fancier of shellfish goes to the market in person, rapping shells together to ascertain whether clams arc alive: picking out the heaviest mussels; flipping the tails.of lobsters to test them for the spring of youth.

Many an epicure has his favourita small store where the proprietor takes a lively interest in his exploring for food. He will talk for hours about his specially favoured dishes. If he has lived long around the Caribbean, he will know that morbee. made from, the morbee bark, is a stimulant to the appetite, and can be bought in the Spanish stores around- Harlem; and that the peculiar virtue of West Indian pepper pot. as well as its flavour, depends upon cassareep, made from the juice of the cassava root,-boiled with spices and salt pork and salt Until, it is as thick as molasses. He will know where to buy cassareep by the bottle. He may even be aware that breads fruit is to be found in the same neighbourhood, and that it makes delicious pancakes when thoroughly ripe. FOR EXPLORING COOKS. Small out-of-the-way markets ara haunts as well of discriminating cooks, who want vanilla beans, and cinnamon bark, and fresh peppercorns for their pepper. mills, fresh horseradish root, old-fashioned West Indian molasses, the best of Hungarian paprika, and a pinch, of saffron for bouillabaisse.

I New Yorkers whose taste in cheeses outruns the generous range available at many grocery departments, frequent the Greek and Italian groceries which suggest that refrigeration and modem packing have dispelled the glamour of the old-time grocery. Here the viands are dried and cured and pickled, and pungent wares are in full view, just as they used to be in village stores when molasses was drawn from the bung, dried apples scooped from the barrel, and the savour of hams mingled with the whiff from a keg or two of salt rUcLckcrGl Here shelves are piled high with tins of olive. oil; kegs of soft white cheese,. floating in whey, crowd the floor space; yards of salami hang over the counter, dozens of corded brown cheeses hang from the ceiling like giant bunches of beets. Sooner or later the exploring New Yorker discovers the Syrian quarter of Washington Street, arid the tempting assortment of sweets compounded of honey, apricots, pistachio nuts, and flavoured with attar of roses; the pastries made with Damascus butter _<it is churned from sheep.and goats' milk, and costs, one is told, a dollar a pound to import) essential to these authentic delicacies of the Near East. There are rolls of sun-dried apricot paste, looking like thin flexible leather; flat round cakes strewn thickly on both sides with sesame seeds. If one shows the slightest interest in ingredients and methods one is politely whisked into the back of the shop, invited to sniff the tin holding the precious Damascus butter, run the ladle through a'vat of pale Syrian honey, taste a fresh batch of sweets with names like lokoom and halwa, and inspect the tissue-thin pastry readyrolled for the day's orders of baklawa and knafie. Verily, it is O. Henry's exotic "Bagdad on the Subway." There is still all Chinatown to explore, with imported li-chee nuts, jasmine tea, preserved Chinese limes, water chestnuts by the pound, filling the shop windows along Mott Street; celery cabbage and other Chinese vegetable's that are grown in New Jersey and on Long Island, and sold from cellar storerooms and push-cart markets, colourful and noisy, in Mulberry Street. If one looked long enough, uptown, downtown, one might even find larks' tongues. Just let the dealer know a little ahead of time, and he can deliver a pound or two of shark.

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