[Sca-cooks] Market Review and Ingredient question (was Quiet)

[smcclune at earthlink.net]

From: "Michael Gunter" <countgunthar at hotmail.com>

Things have gotten quiet so I just decided to test the
system.
<<<

All right, since it's quiet ... perhaps I'll post a shopping review and ask a question:

Last week, Gwen-cat and I and a couple of others went out to investigate a relatively new oriental market in Aurora, CO.  The place is called "H Mart" (for reasons unknown to us), and my sense was that it was primarily Korean, but had things for just about any kind of oriental cuisine.  For those in the Denver area (or who might come visiting at some point), the store is located at the former Cub Foods location (read: BIG supermarket) at Parker Rd. and Yale.

Now, the greater Denver Metro area is not short on Asian markets, by any means.  We have dozens, some of which are pretty good-sized, though of course we can't compare with any city that has a proper "Chinatown".  But H Mart had things I had never seen in a market before.  Things like fresh (not dried) fava beans still in the pod, and five different kinds of eggplant, and some interesting-looking oriental squashes (might have to try my Roman Gourds recipe with those at some point).  They also had the largest apples I had ever seen -- about the size of a grapefruit!  The produce was all fresh and nice-looking, and seemed reasonably priced.  They also had fresh herbs, bundled and priced far more reasonably than the nasty plastic packages at the American supermarket.

Oh, and they had lots of cooking equipment and dishes, too.  That kept us entertained for more than half an hour right there!

Then we found the seafood department, and found many, many kinds of fish (some so fresh it was still swimming around in the tanks) and a couple of varieties of crab (likewise).  They even had frozen eel, and not the kind that have been turned into unagi first!  (Not that I mind unagi, but now I could actually try some of those period eel recipes!)

And of course, they had the usual assortment of Asian canned goods (lychees, lotus root, etc.), though they also had some varieties of tinned fish that I hadn't encountered before.  I got a can of smoked salmon (quite good) and one of unagi (in my desk right now, it might end up being lunch).  There was an entire long aisle devoted to noodles, and many, many sauces.  Interestingly enough, they also had a couple of ethnic "sub-sections" within the store -- one for American and one for hispanic foods.

The frozen department had more kinds of dumplings and dim-sum items than you could shake a stick at.  My friend Rivka and I are now contemplating a dim-sum party at some point.

In the meat department, we encountered such things as ducks with the head and feet still on (another thing I can now try), as well as things like pork blood (handy for blood sausages, no doubt), marrow bones (another thing I've been wanting to experiment with), and even pork uterus (probably not something I'm going to try anytime soon, I must admit).

But the one thing they had that puzzled the lot of us were the rows of frozen plastic containers neatly labeled, "Beef Bile."  Now, I've done a lot of reading, and I hang out with people who cook, but I can't recall ever hearing of a recipe that called for beef bile.  Since there are a lot of really hard-core cooking students out here, I'm wondering if any of you know?

Okay, I think that's it for now.  Let me know if anyone will be visiting and would be interested in a tour.  (Hint: if anyone's coming for CookCon and wants to spend a little time in Denver before heading south to Colorado Springs .... <grin>).

Arwen
Caerthe, Outlands
(Denver, CO)