The boring fact is that I do most of my shopping at the local Giant, in part because of the convenience, in part because my Giant card ends up saving me a lot of money on gas. But, since I'm in Falls Church, I have a lot of Asian grocery stores I spend a fair amount of time in as well: Grand Mart, H Mart and Great Wall. That's partly becuase I cook a lot of Vietnamese (and some Chinese) dishes, partly because that's pretty much all my husband cooks these days. Either way, when it comes to Asian foods, it doesn't get much more authentic than those stores.
So news that two managers at the Great Wall had been arrested on felony charges for selling live fish at the fish counter came as a rotten surprise. Short version: a "concerned" citizen (where to even start?) files a complaint and the state of Virginia launches a big sting operation aimed at proving what everyone already knew: you can buy live fish, eels, turtles and a number of other things at the fish counter. The charges are under the state's wildlife protection laws; the store points out that the fish are farm-raised.
For Americans, particularly white Americans, who've become accustomed to their food being dead for days before coming anywhere near a supermarket, the live fare at the Great Wall fish counter can be disconcerting. Hell, even my first time there made me feel like I was Anthony Bourdain in a backstreet Shanghai market. But the "weirdness" of food is a matter of perspective. My experience with my immigrant in-laws is that they can be as incredulous about the weird shit you eat as you are about theirs.
So, barring any revelations that Great Wall is serving up fresh komodo dragon, I say leave our Asian grocery stores alone.
trust anyone :)
Posted by: siemens servis | December 18, 2012 at 01:08 PM
I liked the nice blog
Posted by: profilo servis | December 18, 2012 at 01:06 PM
the big fish eats the small fish
Posted by: bosch servis | December 15, 2012 at 07:00 PM
Anyway, I'm more considered about hunting down and shooting people who plant bamboo in the neighborhood.
Posted by: aeg servis | December 14, 2012 at 07:37 PM
That's a good point. You'd think these people had watched 12 Monkeys, 28 Days Later, and Snakehead Terror by now. But it's like asking how to stop idiocy -- you'd think a desire to help animals would entail a desire to learn something about animals, but that's too often not the case. I'm sympathetic to trying to stop that kind of vigilante buy-and-release efforts, but I don't think it's fair or necessarily ethical to ask a large and well-defined immigrant sub-culture to bear the brunt of that.
Anyway, I'm more considered about hunting down and shooting people who plant bamboo in the neighborhood. That shit grows fast enough I'm pretty sure I could claim a stand-my-ground self defense.
Posted by: Sean Bugg | March 27, 2012 at 12:51 PM
The problem with live food sales is that bleeding heart animal rights activists (usually Cau-cAsian) go to these stores and buy up the stock, then release them in the wild the name of animal liberation. These species released can be from Asia, and if they don't die a slow horrible death in an alien ecosystem, they survive and breed and voila a new invasive species is released in the wild.
Granted this happens with fish that aren't eaten (aquarium fish) but happens more frequently with edible species due to the activist actions. So how can you stop a live food item from getting loose and thriving in the wild?
Posted by: jimbo | March 27, 2012 at 12:38 PM