Good reads

Market Strategy
© Lydia Walshin (Rhode Island Monthly, July 2004)

TRUE STORY: A man brandishing an exceedingly large, gnarly, brown root vegetable walks up and asks for a knife. Winston Peña directs him to the butcher, who hands him something that looks like a small machete. With a swift flick of the wrist, the man hacks off one end of the tuber, revealing a pure white interior. He smiles, returns the knife, and tosses the vegetable into his grocery cart.

This kind of thing happens all the time in the produce aisle at Compare Foods, a Providence supermarket catering to the varied cuisines of the region's Caribbean, Latin, and South American communities. "How else can you tell if something is fresh?" Peña, the general manager, explains with a laugh, pointing to the little bits of root ends scattered throughout the bins. And when the usual methods of testing — poking, sniffing, squeezing — don't work, it's also perfectly acceptable to gouge out a small bit of the root vegetable with your fingernail.

How could you not love a supermarket like this?

Traveling in the Caribbean, I became addicted to the citrus-spiced cooking in Cuba, rice and beans in Puerto Rico, the richly complex molés of Mexico, arepas at the street stalls in Venezuela, and curried West Indian vegetable stews in Trinidad. I collected recipes from everyone, everywhere, but in order to recreate some of these food memories, I needed to find a local source of ingredients. I asked many friends for suggestions, but when two Providence restaurants — Cuban Revolution, a downtown sandwich shop, and Tina's Jamaican Caribbean Restaurant on Broad Street — recommended Compare Foods, I knew it was the perfect starting point.

From my own recipes and cookbooks, I compiled a shopping list, and I invited my friend Eve Formisano, director of alumni services at Brown University, to come and explore with me. A native of Barrington whose grandparents owned a couple of pizza places around Bristol, she recently graduated from Johnson & Wales, and has worked at Westport Rivers Vineyard and New Rivers. She teaches cooking classes, is co-authoring a cookbook, and — most important — loves to food shop and experiment in the kitchen. And, like me, she doesn't speak Spanish.

Eve came prepared, with cookbooks, recipe ideas and her own grocery list: whole allspice and allspice leaves, cloves, scotch bonnet peppers, coconut milk, flour for tortillas, Seville (sour) oranges, cassava, hot sauce, chayote, calabaza, cardamom pods, green mango, saffron, salt cod, pigeon peas, callaloo, plantains, yams. From my list we added Mexican oregano, tamarind pulp and nectar, ackee and fresh sorrel. (Tip #1: Hit the library before you go. Cooking Caribe, by Christopher Idone, offers recipes from all the Caribbean cultures. Latin & Caribbean Grocery Stores Demystified, by Linda Bladholm, describes hundreds of ingredients, how they're packaged, and how to use them.)

Shop at Compare Foods and you'll feel like you're on a cruise that hops all around the Caribbean; you'll see new things and hear bits of conversation in Spanish, French, Haitian Creole, Jamaican patois, Portuguese and, yes, English. Grab a cart and plunge right in. Signs are in English, the market is brightly lit and well organized, and the fabulous Latin music in the background will infiltrate your soul and get your hips moving.

If you can't find what you're looking for, ask anyone. Really. As Eve and I explored the produce section, filled with many items we didn't recognize, we sought advice from customers as well as store employees. Even those who didn't speak much English were eager to help with information and recipes. Male shoppers were especially forthcoming with cooking tips, though Winston Peña told us that in his country (Dominican Republic) the men do not cook. Maybe not, but they surely do shop.

When you enter the market, you'll be in the produce section. Redolent with the aromas of fresh citrus fruits, peppers and herbs (gorgeous rosemary, culantro with long, thin leaves, and the more familiar cilantro that looks like parsley), this area is where you'll find tamarind pods and cassava bread, a kind of giant wedge-shaped cracker that's a good foil for spicy stews, and yellow and green bananas, and plantains. And there are those bins of root vegetables: sweet batata, yuca, white yams used in Spanish cooking and yellow yams for Jamaican dishes, malanga, namé, sweet potatoes, taro, blue and white yautia. On the outside, they're all brown. Think Terra Chips, and you'll have an idea of what they look like on the inside.

At the rear of the produce aisle, a freezer case holds kingfish, red snapper, whiting, octopus, even fresh frozen goat legs. The butcher will custom cut your meat just the way you like it. In the refrigerated compartment along the back of the store, you'll find chicken, beef and pork — and tripe, and pig tails, and cows' feet. When I asked why the market carries dozens of varieties of salami and sausage, Peña described a typical breakfast in his house: Dominican sausage, mashed plantains and sliced avocado. There's salt cod from China, Canada and Alaska, and ready-to-bake Jamaican beef patties. Don't forget to look up, where you'll find cookware stacked atop the refrigerator cases.

Eve and I decided to wander up and down each aisle. It felt so familiar, with sections devoted to American cereals, canned vegetables, household cleaners, and yet each yielded some wonderful surprises. (Tip #2: All packaged food products sold in the United States must list the ingredients in English on the label. So, even if you don't recognize something in the package, the label will give you a hint of what's inside, and often suggestions for how the product is used.) Some treasures for the pan-Caribbean kitchen:

Aisle 1: Jamaican hot sauces and jerk sauce, Mexican chocolate, beans and peas from Peru and Venezuela. Bitter orange marinade. Chipotle chiles in adobo. Canned beans, hominy, green pigeon peas. Manioc flour and masa harina. And spices (the first of four spice sections in the market).

Aisle 3: Coffee. Strong, strong coffee. Café Caribe, Café Rico, El Coqui, Café Rico Rico, Yaucono Espresso, Café El Aguila. Another spice rack with annatto seeds, linden flower, avocado leaves, menudo spices, star anise, sesame.

Aisle 4: The third spice section, along with herbal teas from Peru that claim to be good for whatever ails you: diabetes, intestinal and digestive problems, cholesterol, arthritis, even women's health.

Aisle 5: More spices! Tamarind, West Indian, and coconut sodas. Pear, soursop, mango and guava nectar (juices). Guatemalan sweet bread, guava turnovers, coconut cookies.

At the far end of the market, the dairy and frozen food cases inspired some great ideas for summer party food. We found queso fresco and queso blanco (cheeses), for quesadillas and nachos, and wonderful blue corn tortillas. Mexican crema pura, similar to sour cream, makes a perfect topping for tortilla soup.

In the freezer case, it's smoothie heaven, with a huge selection of ready-to-use fruit pulps popular in the shakes called batidos: coconut, guayaba, papaya, mamey, soursop, mango, pawpaw, passion fruit and guava. Pick up a package of banana leaves to wrap rice or meat fillings or just give your table the look of the islands. We found frozen grated yuca and cassava chunks. (Save your knuckles. Let someone else do the work for you.) My favorite was a package of something that looked like spinach, called (no kidding) "Peru Food" — which, I confess, defeated these two adventurous shoppers. Not much else did, though; we found almost everything on our list.

Winston Peña and his brothers bought Compare Foods from his uncle three years ago. Their motto, proudly displayed on the awning on the front of the market, promises "Calidad. Precio. Servicio." Quality, price, service. Yes, yes, yes.

Compare Foods, 863 Broad Street, Providence (785-8422), is open Monday-Saturday 8:00 a.m. ­ 9:00 p.m., Sunday 9:00 a.m. ­ 9:00 p.m. Credit cards accepted. ^ top