I don’t currently have any ethnic grocery stores near me, but when I did, the Mexican ones always had chicken thighs for cheap, and also limes.
Like, the regular grocery store might have limes at $0.50 each (in the midwest), while the ethnic store would have 10/$1.00. (pre-covid, pre-inflation prices.)
And there was this Ukrainian place where, from the deli, they would sell in trays a mix of the butt ends of the deli meats and cheeses. They’d label it by weight some bulk price that was often cheaper than some of the meats or cheeses contained in it.
It was like being able to get a cheap meat/cheese sampler tray. So there’d be chunks of salami, turkey, olive loaf–or swiss, american, munster…just whatever meats or cheeses they got to the ends of recently.
At an Asian place I used to go to, I could get tilapia, basa, or swai in frozen fillets for cheap. I actually liked the basa and swai–they’re basically farmed asian catfish, but can’t be labeled catfish as a way to protect the north american catfish industry. I can see why they wanted to prevent competition–I find that basa and swai don’t have the “muck” taste that local catfish have.
Anyway, what are some good deals you have been able to find at local ethnic grocery stores?
Spices, it’s a lot cheaper to buy spices at Indian grocery stores compared to other supermarkets. Same with lentils.
Disclaimer: my parents have owned and operated a small indian grocery store for almost 20 years. I can really only speak for their prices compared to other stores I’ve visited.
Do you have any advice for purchasing bulk spices? If your parents own/operate an indian grocery store, I bet you know stuff the rest of us might not.
I guess I’m wondering if there’s types that are better deals or better potency, or if something or other is a sign to stay away from certain goods…etc.?
Edit: I’m very much a spice novice. And I probably sound like one, lol.
I’m gonna be honest, some brands are better than others and even then it’s region and distributor dependent. Unlike bigger grocery stores like Kroger, giant eagle or tops, each small store has to negotiate with distributors individually and the distributors themselves can be small.
Certain brands have their own favored distributors and to get said brands of goods, you either have to buy directly from the distributor or a distributor needs to buy from them in order to sell it.
As for spices, things to keep in mind, chili powder can vary in strength from distributor to distributor or even lot to lot in the same distributor. Most other spices tend to stay consistent. Turmeric is kinda questionable in terms of origin. Some brands advertise as organic, that would be a better bet. Turmeric should be a consistent dark yellow color, not that far off from a school bus yellow. Also you shouldn’t be using that much turmeric. Ill see recipies online for people using a ton of turmeric (like several tablespoons), it can really overpower a dish. If you’re using that much turmeric and it’s not overpowering, it’s probably not that great. Other than that, I can’t really say much.
Stuff in plastic bags tends to be cheaper in terms of unit price as containers are expensive, bulk whole spices can be worth it but it depends on what style of cooking you do and what spices you need and what form you need. Again, I’m Indian so I use both ground and whole spices. I don’t have the patience to grind my own spices consistently and I’d rather just buy preground. Also even if you aren’t buying in bulk, spices tend to be half the price at a good Indian store compared to elsewhere.
When I moved out for college, I bought some spices because I wanted to make a carrot cake. Let’s just say I spent like 3x the price compared to what I would have spent at an Indian store.
If you want to find a bad example of turmeric, look up Matty Matheson’s butter chicken. His turmeric looks weird and he uses an obscene amount of it to compensate a lack of potency I’m assuming. I joke that it’s so much that it fried my computer. (my computer actually blue screened and wouldn’t boot right when my friend sent me this video and I clicked on it. A coincidence but very funny)
https://youtu.be/G6Qjf6IyclQ 🎥 Matty Matheson’s Finger Lickin’ Butter Chicken - YouTube
Thank you so much for your reply! It was basically everything I was hoping for. I really do appreciate it. I didn’t know chili powder could vary that much, or that tumeric can overpower easily. (I’ve tried playing with tumeric…and just didn’t get good results as I had no knowledge to draw from.)
And I’ll definitely take a look at that video, so I can see an example of bad usage. (Man–is there a YouTube channel like that? Or blog? “Bad examples of cooking–and why!” Like, not click-bait bad, just…this isn’t right, for these specific, grounded reasons…)