From: mdhangton@gmail.com   
      
   On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 9:23:06 PM UTC-4, J.Pascal wrote:   
   > On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 5:20:09 PM UTC-6, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)   
   wrote:   
   >    
   > > On 9/10/14, 8:12 PM, Jymesion wrote:   
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   > > > On Tue, 9 Sep 2014 12:59:22 -0700 (PDT), William Vetter   
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   > >    
   >    
   > > >  wrote:   
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   > > >> Maybe you should go to an Oriental grocery and see how expensive the   
   canned vegetables and condiments are.  Really, if you took the labels off,   
   you'd decrease the value by 1/4th.   
   >    
   >    
   > > > Any ethnic food is expensive outside its base area.   
   >    
   > > 	I dunno, if I go to the local Asian supermarket the asian canned    
   > > veggies are a LOT cheaper than they are in other stores.   
   >    
   > That's been my experience, too.  Coconut milk at the local ethnic market   
   (not really Asian as they've got sections for Germany and Sweden and Kenya and   
   Cuba... etc.) is much less expensive than at the regular chain groceries.    
   Fresh vegetables are    
   generally cheaper, too.  I buy shallots there because they're cheap instead of   
   outrageous.  Stuff like black bean sauce    
      
   I recommend you buy the black beans they have in a plastic bag.  They are   
   soybeans fermented in brine.  Rinse them to get the crystallized salt off,   
   mash them in a little bowl with sugar and oil and possibly a small amount of   
   cayenne powder with the back    
   of a spoon to make black bean paste.  Add it to wok after meat is cooked,   
   scrape it around a little while, then add stock or soy sauce or wine whatever   
   liquid is in recipe.  The black bean taste will be much more intense, and the   
   bag is a couple dollars    
   a pound.   
      
      
   These products are marked up in supermarkets and put in International Foods   
   section or whatever.  That is not the same as changing the label to remove   
   "Product of PRC."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)