[Sca-cooks] eels, veering largely OT

[Sue Clemenger]

Nope.  Not a high enough Asian population to warrant one, I'd guess 
(Missoula and surrounding county is maybe 60,000? total pop.).  We do 
have small communities of Hmong, Vietnamese, and Tibetan, with smaller 
influences of Japanese students at the U (probably because of the old 
Mike Mansfield connection).  And at least a couple of Thai families. 
There may be other ethnic Asians in Missoula, but I've worked directly 
with people from the above cultures.
Come to think of it, I don't think we have *any* ethnic markets.  We had 
a lovely, old place called the "Import Market" that had fun imported 
pastas, amazing wines, and oodles of oddities, but the owner recently 
retired.
We have a few Asian restaurants, not counting the usual American-Chinese 
hybrids, but no Asian market.  Unless Billings has one (largest city in 
the state, at 100,000 people or so), I'd probably have to go out of 
state to find one.  Spokane, maybe?... 2 states away, but only 3-4 hours 
travel, given that we just go through the Idaho panhandle.  Heck, 
they're almost the nearest SCA group to us, and are the next nearest 
barony.  Only closer group is a shire about 2.5 to 3 hours north of us, 
which is the only one we can get to without going over at least one 
mountain pass.  Or two.  To get to the nearest in-kingdom barony (1000 
Eyes, in Idaho Falls, 5 hours away in reasonable weather and not too far 
over the speed limit), we actually go over the continental divide twice.

IIRC, and I could be wrong, the closest we get to commercial fisheries 
or fish farms in this state are the hatcheries for trout and such.  We 
have amazing sport fishing though....if you ever saw the movie, "A River 
Runs Through It," that was based in Missoula. ;-)

This all means, to try and get this back on-topic, that we rarely get 
fish for feasts, as it's just completely out of our price range.  Lamb, 
occasionally, or goat, if someone's selling an extra kid, and we've even 
done the whole roasted pig a time or two, but mostly we end up sticking 
with beef, chicken, and sometimes pork.
--maire, in a mood to meander, so she apologizes for the lengthy dribble ;-)

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> Maire replied to me with:
>  
>> Certainly, it's
>> not the sort of thing/variety the ordinary person would find in a market
>> here--we're too far inland, and too small a town.
> 
> No, not the regular grocery stores. But you don't have any Asian markets 
> in your area?