Why Do Grocery Stores Still Have Ethnic Aisles? | Priya Krishna | NYT Cooking
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Why do grocery stores still have ethnic aisles? In this video, Priya Krishna explores the question while visiting a Food Bazaar grocery store in Queens, N.Y..
I need to know what was in the Malta section👏🏼👏🏼
Very intriguing. I don't know that I consciously think of the ethnic food aisles. On the one hand, I appreciate the convenience of getting my typical groceries while being able to explore a few new recipes, as I do find the thought of going into a specialized grocery store alone intimidating. On the other hand, depending on which store and which city I'm in, it can be incredibly limited. Like another commenter said, the items in the ethnic aisle are sometimes not authentic.
As a black American, I also find it interesting that I may find canned soul food sides like greens or seasoned beans in the ethnic aisle or the canned veggie aisle. Soul food is American food, so intriguing when you think of it as ethnic, which is different than international. Then again, so is Tex Mex, which is often found in the ethnic aisles. I wonder how those items sell when placed in the veggie/sauce aisles vs the ethnic aisles.
One thing I do think about more often are stores like Target and Walmart and the ethnic hair care aisles. Very similar but also very different. I don't always feel great about that section being tiny and separate, but hair is more specialized. Anyone can eat a different cuisine. Not everyone has hair that requires specific products. I don't have many deep thoughts. I'd just be curious to hear the perspective of maybe an African or Caribbean cook on the ethnic food aisle experience and the ethnic hair care aisle.
I have worked in a grocery store for several years, the ethnic aisle is broken up into sections by cuisine. While it makes sense to do away with it and mix the items into the rest of the store it is often easier for current customers to find what they are looking for by having those items on one aisle. As for introducing customers to new items, it is hit or miss. The biggest selling stuff are things like noodles and sauces. There are a ton of packaged bulk spices similar to those Priya commented on, but the customers never purchase this stuff, preferring instead to go to an indian grocer to purchase the items instead. While the store does have a large indian, hispanic, and asian clientele a lot of the more exotic stuff we carry doesn't sell as there is a certain trust factor involved which I don't think this video addresses.
I'm jealous that people who live in the US have so much access to other culture's food! I live in a town in Catalunya, Spain, and I have to drive an hour to Barcelona to go to an asian market to get sesame oil. I think it's great, it makes cultural food more widely available to people of those cultures, and might spark interest in other people who have never tried those foods. The only thing that's a bit iffy is the name, like why ethnic? It feels othering, and kinda feels like it only applies to non-white cultural foods (bc americans don't consider non-american white people ethnic), so is indian food "ethnic"? To who? Is Spanish food ethnic? Italian? Jamaican? Where's the line between ethnic and not-ethnic. I would call the aisle "Cultural foods" or better "Wordly Foods" bc that just implies foods from elsewhere than the US.
I think it's very helpful to me to have these types of aisles for the same reason Priya said. It teaches me that "this thing" is from "that country"! And I appreciate that cultural information/learning.
So you can easily find products and ingredients from so many thousands…
Within two seconds I was like '…hey wait. I know that store!' That place is so magical, I love it.
It's interesting because in Brasil, where my family is from. They also have an "international/ethnic" aisle. Although it looks different than ours, some american snacks, european snacks, snacks from other latino countries. I wonder if it's like this in other countries as well.
The grocery store near me switched their aisle to international foods, and it seems to contain products that are imported. This includes everything from Japanese snacks, to Jamaican soda, to English style tomato baked beans in the teal can. Dinner things that people might consider "ethnic" such as spices or dried lentils or soy sauce also show up in the non international aisles as well. If you have a bigger store like the one in this segment, I like the concept of dividing up aisles by cooking region. It's difficult for me to find certain Southeast Asian ingredients (tamarind, curry pastes, panda, etc.), even at my local Asian markets.
please stop calling it an "ethnic food" aisle and instead call it an "international aisle".
i am an american living in a foreign country. my local grocery store has an "international food" aisle. the aisle has imported foods that are not part of the regional cuisine. why is this controversial?
As a POC, I've always hated the ethnic aisle as being like a half to full aisle and it basically has mexican products, asian products, english and jewish products here. It is NOT diverse enough. The store you showed with the multiple aisles of different countries' products is amazing. I think for the area I live, I understand why it's so limited as it's mostly a white population, however we are here too. I'm Puerto Rican and Chilean. I can find Goya, but I'm not a fan of it and it's super limited. I can't find any Chilean products. The asian section has a lot of white washed brands/products, so it's hard to get an authentic product or find a spice needed. Some stores allow you to request products, but it usually has to be in demand by more than one person. The idea of an ethnic aisle is horrible, but again, I understand the demographics. I do think, just as you said, our country is a melting pot and our stores should be reflecting that and opening people's minds to other cuisines and ideas. I tend to shop more at stores that have authentic products even if that's a little further out or a little more expensive.
I live in Santa Cruz, CA. The Safeway on the east side carries token variety of ethnic foodstuffs, sorted by ethnicity. The Safeway on the west side serves UCSC, and has significant choice in ethnic foodstuffs, some of which are grouped, but others integrated. I make a special trip to shop at Patel Brothers Indian grocery store in Santa Clara when i'm in Silicon Valley. Instead of being an aisle, it's a whole store.
I live in a medium sized city in Western NC… the “ethnic aisle” is ok for a quick trip to the big box grocery, and I’m glad we have it, because otherwise I’m not sure how I’d find things like rice noodles or fish sauce. We do have a few “Asian grocery stores” which are, of course, way way better in terms of selection & authenticity, but it’s an additional trip to make. I wish I lived somewhere with a Food Bazaar type store!
I like having that ethnic aisle for the same reason Jolene mentioned. It's good to have all these diverse foods in one spot, so I can explore different options in one place 🙂 It's so inspiring!
One thing that struck me is that it is not as simple as having it on the shelves of a grocery store. If people don't know how to use something or how it's inclusion would enhance a dish they are not likely to buy it.
I like that it offers more options within a mainstream setting (a perfect example is hot sauces), but I also find that there are a lot of shortcomings within the "ethnic aisle." For example, overall homogeneity where there would normally be larger contrast in flavors/options.
The foods offered are also usually not the most needed of a specific regional cuisine. The food products in this aisle in the midwest are the American "accessable" options.
Like you said, it always comes down to the money. I find specialty stores and farmers markets the best options for depth and diversity in my diet.
we call it international section in the philippines. or it's segregated by continent. asian aisle, european, american aisle etc.
Even in Malaysia, we have an “international foods” aisle (usually Korean / Japanese)… When I was in Switzerland, there would be an “Asian foods” section – but there were Asian grocers scattered around where I would get more familiar ingredients.
Please, do we now have to carry as an additional burden the weight of the “ethnic aisle”? I don’t need my grocery store to educate me, I look after that myself. I like a very diverse range of food and have had the opportunity to learn from actual every day practitioners how to cook these dishes. This makes my dietary intake interesting. When I shop for groceries, I am mostly looking to find the items I am after quickly and efficiently. The ethnic aisle, regardless of it’s size, is helpful in this respect. Either they have what I’m looking for or they don’t. If not I will choose to make a particular dish after I have time to do a specialty store run. if you’re not preparing the same type of food every day, you will not want large supplies of things you can’t get through. Another benefit of the ethnic aisle. Small sizes.
Because it's best to have the ethnic foods together instead of all over the store. Please don't turn this thing into a racial thing.
The aisles are owned by the big brands. That's how it is at most grocery stores. I'm surprised the aisles aren't called Nabisco, Frito Lay, Kraft, etc. When I want Indian products I go to my local Indian store. Same if I want Asian products or Latin or Middle Eastern. The variety at your typical "American" grocery store for ethnic foods is laughable. But yet, you can find 57 varieties of Oreos, or an entire aisle dedicated to soda where only 2 brands are in competition (Coke vs Pepsi).
I live in Belgium and my family originates from Algeria. We cook a lot of different foods with ingredients not often found in nearby supermarkets. Their ethnic aisle is ridiculous, there's almost nothing that we use and the brands we do use have a ~40% markup in price.
The way I see it, ethnic aisles are not meant for minorities who actually use the ingredients available there on the daily. They're more useful to the people who want to add something "exotic" to their cooking. When I was discovering Asian food, I was happy to have access to that one brand of soy sauce because I didn't know about Asian supermarkets. I'd love to see more diversity of ingredient and brand, but I know it won't happen because the people who use this aisle here feel like it's diverse enough.
Well to be fair here in Malaysia we have the Western aisle.
I personally hate the term "ethnic" to refer to non-white people since white people also have an ethnicity, but I personally like how all the "ethnic foods" are put in the same place.
1st generation American/New Yorker, of Indo-Caribbean descent who enjoys international cuisine. I find grouping foods/ingredients by region/culture/ethnicity to be incredibly convenient, and informative for thinking about what flavors/ingredients go together. 90+ percent of the time when I am using sesame oil, I will also need/want, Rice Wine Vinegar, and Soy Sauce. It makes sense to have those ingredients together than having to go look through the oil aisle, the vinegar aisle, and the sauce aisle, it teaches consumers that those flavors work well together. This method of organization isn’t totally unique to “ethnic” food either. Ketchup and mustard are usually located next to hot dog buns. Canned Southern biscuits are located next to the eggs and bacon and sausage.
In my opinion there’s nothing wrong with associating certain ingredients with certain ethnicities. Prior to globalization, certain ingredients were only available in certain geographic areas, and the people who happened to live there experimented over hundreds of years to determine which combination of those ingredients tasted good together and created techniques for utilizing those ingredients that most people still use as a blueprint to this day.
I dont hate these aisles only bc it makes it way easier to find what i need 😅
It's just convenient, if you want to cook Indian go to where all the indian products are, it saves you having to scour the entire store. The same happens in reverse, go to Japan, SE Asia etc and you see the local goods taking up the most space with smaller speciality items from other culture's grouped together. It's also entirely possible that as soon as we mix ethinc specific foods in with local area goods somebody will scream cultural appropriation. It's not uncommon to seperate international cheeses from local cheeses for example and nobody worries about that. Whatever you do, you have to break down goods that fit into multiple categories and then put them in one. Does dried pasta go? with italian goods or does it go with carbohydrates like bread and rice, is it a pantry item, a long life item? There is no one good answer as we all have a natural affinity to break down these categories differently given our life experiences.
Hmmmmm, I like finding ingredients that go with a recipe so I'm the type of shopper that bops around the store looking for it. We don't have huge ethnic aisles so I improvise occasionally. We are lucky to have a World Market and a few other Asian specific stores.
This grocery store looks like an absolute dream
In Montréal Canada we have them too called international usually
When I moved to another country, I could barely speak the language and had to translate every ingredient on my cell phone at the grocery store, which was exhausting! So even though the international aisle was tiny ten years ago, to me, it was a haven. My friends and I had text message chains so we could spread the news when a store stocked a hot sauce we liked or the GOOD macaroni and cheese. I say we keep shopping the international section so stores expand them!
Canadian here in a smaller city, but our local grocer has a fairly good international food aisle. There's a range of your Americanized Asian food, some imported Asian/Indian ingredients, along with some Caribbean, Middle Eastern, and a small assortment of European and British imports (often candy). It is often one of the big aisles I pop down to see if there are any new products or interesting ingredients I haven't seen before.
Here I have an opposite problem. In Asia the western food supermarkets are overly expensive for very basic things like imported stock cubes, ‘exotic’ sauces and cookies. I always feel like being cheated by these crazy prices.
I feel like the ethnic aisle never has what I want. Also I go out of my way to buy from “ethnic” supermarkets and I am popping in to the corner store for other essentials.
I live in Sunnyside Queens. We have a historic Irish population, a large Turkish presence as well as Southeast Asian, Indian, Central and South American, Japanese, Korean and Eastern European. All of my "regular" grocery stores (nicknamed Crappy, Fancy and Crazy) have culturally diverse foods but they're not relegated to an "Ethnic" section. Our favorite store (Crazy) groups Thai, Chinese, Indian and Japanese packaged foods and sauces together next to the plant milks, Goya beans are on an end cap separate from the other beans; Sazon, La Morena, La Costena and other Central/South American foods are on another end cap, the US "Mexican" brands are tucked over by the popcorn, Asian and Eastern European Teas are with all the other teas, Japanese and Korean snack foods are next to the fancy chips and crackers and tofu, kimchi and miso are sprinkled throughout the produce section. (I think you can see why it's nicknamed 'Crazy') Oddly enough, I have to go to Crappy (because it was, before they got their facelift) to get S'chug. For my extended neighborhood, there are a couple of "European" groceries, a few "Asian" markets, a Turkish foods store and a Bangladeshi deli that has fresh halal goats. For Indian supplies, Jackson Heights is only 4 stops on the train. Every time I leave NYC and go to a grocery store I remember why I love NYC. They sell a million choices of foods that I don't eat, and only one or two bland westernized choices for the foods that I cook frequently.
For many people the 'ethnic' aisle is the first chance they have to get to know other cultures. Their first taste of diversity. (Pun intended 😆). After buying things in that aisle for a while my mom and I began to venture out to our Italian, Mexican and Vietnamese markets in our city. Once we became more comfortable with those we found African, Indian, and halal. Now, I just get the boring basics like potatoes and milk at our regular store. I understand it will be different for someone whose culture is displayed in the 'ethnic'aisle or for areas that are a food desert and don't have great local stores.
The Ecuadorian guy with the Manicho chocolate bars in minute 5:17 made my day! all Ecuadorian people I know told me that i should really go grocery shopping Food Bazaar any time I felt home sick… thank you for this awesome video Priya! I do believe it’s easier to find some stuff for special recipes, so I definitely am
#ethnicislesupporter