SC - NYC ingredient resource

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Hullo, the list!

I put in some market browsing the other day, and thought it might
conceivably be of interest to some of you, particularly those in Whyt Whey.

I'd never been inside the Elitist Pig MarketPlace (or whatever it's
called, that sort of mezzanine-ish indoor row of stalls at the ground
level at Grand Central Station, accessible from 44th Street between
Lexington and Third Avenues) until last Friday, but it had some
interesting stuff.

There are some pretty nice, if expensive, fish, meat, cheese, produce,
and specialty import markets there, notably a rather esoteric fish
seller, who had the largest black seabass I've seen in the last twenty
years (we've overfished our local waters, and it shows), shad roe (yes,
the time is now if you pay attention to this stuff), and a quite
respectable variety of other water-dwelling produce.

The cheese market was roughly comparable with my favorite, Fairway, but
also more pricey. There's a nice German charcuterie and quite a few
deli/prepared food stalls, plus several bakeries, all of high quality
and requiring a second mortgage to do bidness with them. 

I think my favorite place was a stall called Adriana's Caravan, which
bills itself as selling "every ingredient for every recipe you've ever
read". They are, in fact, a grocery in the literal sense, selling
spices, vinegars, oils, jams, specialty pastas, a moderate range of
Asian products, etc., plus a small selection of earthenware serving
platters, mortars and similar knickknacks. Cool Indian spiceboxes!

Among the spices I found cubebs, grains of paradise, galingale in both
dried and frozen forms, long pepper (has anybody noticed how _short_
long pepper is getting lately?) and whole mace, all fairly expensive,
but apparently better quality than, say, Aphrodisia, which lately has
allowed dust to collect on some of their spices. I _think_ I'm speaking
figuratively. I forget which, it was probably either the grains of
paradise or the cubebs that they sold in little 2-ounce bags for the
shocking price of around $10. On the other hand, I think they were
selling La Mancha saffron at something like $10 for four grams, which,
while not terrific, isn't ridiculous, either. (Anybody wishing to buy
saffron by the ounce locally should probably talk to Argyle, Beth
McMahon, or myself to find a good place.)

What I actually bought from them was a jar of imported Perigord verjus,
which proved to be a jar of unripe, seedless grapes packed in verjuice.
As usual, it was expensive ($13?) but I thought it would be fun to
experiment with some of the recipes that call for verjuice grapes,
notably the Platina "Chicken In Verjuice" that actually doesn't call for
verjuice at all...

I was curious as their reasoning for displaying the cubebs, long pepper,
and grains of paradise together, and asked about that, and how they
might recommend these spices be used. They unearthed a big book with a
little background info on each herb or spice they sell. It apparently
hadn't occurred to these people that such spices might be of interest to
recreationist types. I Just Happened to have had a copy of The Forme of
Cury with me, and they were pretty interested to see the spices they
were selling and displaying together, being used together in some of the
recipes. They told me they grouped them together because the grains,
long pepper, and cubebs were all peppers.

They apparently have a web site at http://www.adrianascaravan.com  . I
haven't visited it yet.

No, this isn't a plug for the place. I'd rather buy most of the things
they sell elsewhere for considerably less, but I did think it might come
in handy to know that if you need a couple of ounces of long pepper on a
Friday night, for a workshop or an event the next day, etc., options exist.

Adamantius      
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com