No butts about it
About a year ago, I had a depressing encounter in the meat department of Safeway. I asked the clerk (I refuse to call him a butcher, for reasons that will shortly become obvious) whether they carried pork butt. He stopped short and just stood there staring at me with a bemused expression.
Oh no. Can it really be? Have we deteriorated this far? I waited a few seconds until I was sure what the issue was, and then I plunged ahead.
"It's not the actual butt of the pig. You know that, right?"
"It's not?" he asked, laughing heartily.
"No. It's not." (I am not in the mood for laughs. This is what's wrong with corporate grocery chains! This and citrus fruit that rots one day after you buy it. And a million other things.)
"Ohhh! Well, whatever it is, we don't carry it."
I recalled this incident after enduring another awkward conversation in the checkout line at an Indian grocery store near work. I shop there frequently because everything is cheap and fresh; it appears that their customers actually cook for themselves instead of just opening cans, and thus they demand reasonably priced foods that are not a sunrise away from sprouting a white fur coat. (How I love you, 26-cent-bunch-of-cilantro!)
Also, I come here because I bought an Indian cookbook written by my coworker last year and have been slowly working my way through her recipes. And there's a small part of me that enjoys visiting the store because I feel like an oddity; every time I go in, somebody rushes over to help me navigate my way through my shopping list, curious to know what I'm making. Now that's service! I guess they don't get a lot of white girls who use their lunch hours to gaze longingly at jars of lime pickle.
Anyway, here's how the conversation went down:
Clerk (shyly glancing at me, then my pile of black lentils, spices, and Indian eggplants): Do you know how to cook all this?
Me: Yep, I'm learning. It's not too hard. Hey, do you sell anise seed, by any chance?
Clerk: Anise? How do you spell? (Haltingly.) A-N-U-S?
Me (practically shrieking): NO!! NO! (Regaining my composure slightly.) No.
[Note: I think I freaked out because this is one of my bigger conversational bugaboos. Anise/anus and prostrate/prostate always give me pause. Before I speak them aloud, I literally have to stop, whisper the words to myself, and then proceed with extreme caution to make sure I get them right. Every. Single. Time. My parents still laugh about my teenage mix-up of hover/hoover. In our family, when a bird circles the feeder outside, it's hoovering.]
Clerk (quizzically; completely unaware of his gaffe): Oh?
Me (blushing): A-N-I-S-E. Here, let me write it down for you.
As it happens, they don't sell it. We move on. I pay for my groceries and get ready to leave.
Clerk (very solemnly): I wish you great success in your cooking of this meal.
Me: Thank you!
Oh no. Can it really be? Have we deteriorated this far? I waited a few seconds until I was sure what the issue was, and then I plunged ahead.
"It's not the actual butt of the pig. You know that, right?"
"It's not?" he asked, laughing heartily.
"No. It's not." (I am not in the mood for laughs. This is what's wrong with corporate grocery chains! This and citrus fruit that rots one day after you buy it. And a million other things.)
"Ohhh! Well, whatever it is, we don't carry it."
I recalled this incident after enduring another awkward conversation in the checkout line at an Indian grocery store near work. I shop there frequently because everything is cheap and fresh; it appears that their customers actually cook for themselves instead of just opening cans, and thus they demand reasonably priced foods that are not a sunrise away from sprouting a white fur coat. (How I love you, 26-cent-bunch-of-cilantro!)
Also, I come here because I bought an Indian cookbook written by my coworker last year and have been slowly working my way through her recipes. And there's a small part of me that enjoys visiting the store because I feel like an oddity; every time I go in, somebody rushes over to help me navigate my way through my shopping list, curious to know what I'm making. Now that's service! I guess they don't get a lot of white girls who use their lunch hours to gaze longingly at jars of lime pickle.
Anyway, here's how the conversation went down:
Clerk (shyly glancing at me, then my pile of black lentils, spices, and Indian eggplants): Do you know how to cook all this?
Me: Yep, I'm learning. It's not too hard. Hey, do you sell anise seed, by any chance?
Clerk: Anise? How do you spell? (Haltingly.) A-N-U-S?
Me (practically shrieking): NO!! NO! (Regaining my composure slightly.) No.
[Note: I think I freaked out because this is one of my bigger conversational bugaboos. Anise/anus and prostrate/prostate always give me pause. Before I speak them aloud, I literally have to stop, whisper the words to myself, and then proceed with extreme caution to make sure I get them right. Every. Single. Time. My parents still laugh about my teenage mix-up of hover/hoover. In our family, when a bird circles the feeder outside, it's hoovering.]
Clerk (quizzically; completely unaware of his gaffe): Oh?
Me (blushing): A-N-I-S-E. Here, let me write it down for you.
As it happens, they don't sell it. We move on. I pay for my groceries and get ready to leave.
Clerk (very solemnly): I wish you great success in your cooking of this meal.
Me: Thank you!
posted by cindym at 5:44 AM
11 Comments:
I want someone to wish ME great success in the cooking of my meal!!!
I love Indian grocery stores, especially ones with a sweets counter! Are you loving cooking Indian food or what?? It's SO satisfying to make. You spend all this time grinding spices and slow-cooking ingredients and then you come up with something that tastes better than anything you'd ever get in a restaurant. And if you cook for 12, you have some left over for the next day. (I am thinking specifically of a beef vindaloo recipe that makes me drool every time I even think about it.)
Safeway's meat department! I was buying a couple crabs to make crab cakes. My kitchen is being remodeled, so when the butcher asked if I'd like them cleaned and cracked, I said, "Yes, please!" He was about to start, when a younger guy came in, and the first butcher (FB) passed the job on to him.
All appears to be going well. Then the young guy says to the FB, "It's a shame to throw away all this meat." He indicates the body of the crab. The FB and I look at him unbelievingly. He was actually going to throw the bodies away and give me only the legs!
Someone's sole exposure to crab seems to have been the all-you-can-eat, Alaskan King Crab Legs at Red Lobster. Yikes. This is the coast of California, for Pete's sake, not the wilds of some landlocked state.
Wow. I had the exact same experience asking for pork butt at my neighborhood grocery store! And it's not like it's just ANY grocery store; it happens to be the Fairway, which is like the nicest grocery store I have ever seen in New York City.
The dude behind the counter just laughed at me. "You want pig's butt?"
So my new obsession with pork adobo has been suffering from lack of pork-butt access.
It's funny that I never had that problem in the hippie Bay Area!
Speaking of mispronunciations resulting in the inadvertent mixture of culinary and scatological themes, a certain non-native English speaker I know was speaking recently about a new product called "Carrot Dippers," which is essentially carrots cut for convenient dipping (I guess -- I've never seen the things). What he said, though, was "Carrot Diapers." There was laughter. There was confusion. There was embarrassment. I just love English as a Second Language.
One day I want to come grocery shopping with you and ask for Pork Butt with Anise seed please. And we will giggle--oh yes we will!
And here's my useless tip: I make a pointed effort to pronounce it ah-neese just to avoid any embarrassment.
That is some cheap cilantro--reminded me to tell you my latest story: I was at Coach the other day and watched as the sushi chef made this beautiful roll with cilantro in it. In our continuing conversation, I complained about how I was always buying these huge bunches of cilantro and not using all of it. (I complain to him often, especially after masu sake--he's part master sushi chef, part bartender.)
Before I left, he chopped me off a small bunch and said he can always spare a little. It was the best cilantro (sushi-grade?) I have ever tasted--I didn't know there could be such a difference!
Moxie - I wish you great success!
Chloe - Yes, you make massive quantities of delicious food for not much money. Can't beat that...
Zaza - love it. that is TERRIBLE.
Erin - you need a carniceria!
Rach - it's like when my cooking school teacher told us we would be making nails...he meant snails...
Meesh - AHNEESE!
Phil - I'm not sure if I'm buying sushi-grade cilantro, but if Coach uses it, it must be good.
I may be revealing my ignorance here, but isn't "pork butt" also known as or more commonly known as "pork shoulder" and/or "pork shoulder blade roast"? That's what I generally get when I smoke pulled pork.
As a side note, Cindy, you may be amused to know that your/Johno's smoker had been living in my backyard up until about 18 months ago.
Regardless, odd that your Safeway guy didn't know sh** from shinola in that regard. Our Safeway butcher guy (he does merit the title) is pretty good all things considered.
After I'm done working my pork butt, there's nothing better than diving into some anise and seeing what comes out.
-Roger
Hi Rog - Yeah, pork shoulder = pork butt. I had to look up pork shoulder blade roast because I wasn't sure what that was...but yes, it seems to be the same thing, and also goes by the name Boston blade roast. It is kind of dizzying, all these names for the same cut, so maybe I shouldn't be so quick to condemn my clerk/butcher guy. On the other hand, I'm not standing behind a meat counter wearing a white coat.
I LOVE that the smoker lives on! That warms my heart.
sorry I'm late on the draw, but did anybody say that some call pork butt "boston butt"? like here in the south. BTW... plentyo'moxie... bon chanc!
Post a Comment
<< Home