Ha Tien

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Benjamin went to a Russian grocery store in Madison a few weeks ago. He was going along and saw it and wondered what it was. He went in – there were a few other shoppers and one clerk and he seemed to be the only one who didn’t speak Russian. As he perused the shelves of products with labels printed in Russian, he wondered what things were. He didn’t have any idea what most of it could be. He realized he really, really wasn’t familiar with Russian cuisine.

That is interesting, isn’t it? We have such globalization, yet there are vast swaths of things that are still unfamiliar. I was wondering where the Russians who emigrated ended up? Did they emigrate? I should look that up. Who knows about Russian food because it is all around them? Milwaukee has a real collection of ethnicities, and the town celebrates many of those heritages with their summer festivals. Obviously, I live among the Norwegians (when we go to the Norway pavilion at EPCOT and everyone around us is oooohing and ahhhhing about the bakery, we are very confused because it looks like the grocery store). Minnesota also has the largest population of Hmong people outside of Laos. Keith’s mom hosted many recently immigrated families in Eau Claire 35 years ago. One time, several families joined together to cook for her family. I remember seeing VERY unfamiliar food, and Keith being completely willing to try things. (Some things don’t change.) Other than that, I have not taken any opportunity to try Hmong food.

After we were talking about the lack of Russian food knowledge, we decided to go to the Asian grocer, Ha Tien. Alexander, Benjamin, and Sean have all been there many times, but I have never been. Alexander was excited to take me, to show me all the amazing things they have. Benjamin and Sean were actually shopping to take things home, but Alexander and I were just checking out frozen frog legs (from really BIG frogs) (I would be terrified of them), the many, many, many, many kinds of noodles, a bunch of fruit I have never heard of, and fried garlic. We were very interested in fried garlic. It looked just like crunchy bits of yum, so we bought some. We think we can just sprinkle it on everything. Alexander has told me before how much he likes the aisle of giant pots. It was impressive indeed. BIG pots.

We saw an overhead sign that indicated an upcoming aisle had American food. I took a picture of the American food section. This store is big. There is an entire aisle of soy sauces. There are 15 different chili pastes, and 100 bottles of each kind. The American food wasn’t quite so plentiful (not that it needed to be!!).

It was a grand outing. A lot of the workers are of Asian descent, and we were a little intimidated about ordering lunch at the hot food counter because there were no signs and questions needed to be asked. That felt pretty silly when we realized they were just Minnesotans. Um. Duh. Benjamin ordered a sugar cane juice. None of us were around, as we were still picking our food, so we missed seeing the lady feed a 3-foot piece of sugar cane into the juicer to make his drink. DARN! Another time I will watch for sure!