Thursday, October 11, 2007
By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER
Walk in the door, and you will see familiar fruit like apples and oranges in a large, wood-slatted produce display. But in the neighboring tub, you see long, thin tubers labeled "gobou roots" with the dirt still clinging to their brown skins. [Left: Staff photo from Han Ah Reum by Peter Monsees. Courtesy of North Jersey Media Group.]
What are gobou roots? And where are we?
The roots are actually burdock, used commonly in Japanese cuisine -- but we're not in Japan. Welcome to Bergen County's Korean supermarkets.
For home cooks who cook in the East Asian style -- Korean, Chinese or Japanese -- these markets are a boon, saving a trip to Chinatown or Queens. Produce generally unavailable at a local supermarket chain like bok choy, daikon and lotus roots are prominently displayed and sold at manageable prices.
But on shelves next to the bountiful tofu section, Oscar Mayer and Kraft Singles make their residence. Kraft's Philadelphia cream cheese, bacon, hot dogs and even Lunchables can be found next to more exotic merchandise. In dried food aisles, you might even find a section dedicated to Goya and pick up a jar of Skippy.
"We are not just for Koreans," said Jimmy Kim, spokesman for the Han Ah Reum supermarket. "We are a neighborhood market ... a lot of Western, Chinese and Japanese people visit us."
More than other East Asian markets, Korean supermarkets in Bergen County are one-stop shopping centers for all sorts of food commodities -- Eastern, Western and beyond. An island of tubers at Han Yang Korean Market in Bergenfield features malanga, popular in Cuba; taro root, important in West Africa, the Caribbean and the Polynesian Islands; and cassava, which is used to make tapioca. And that's in addition to your garden-variety red potatoes going for 79 cents a pound.
Han Ah Reum, or H-mart as it is now called, is based in Lyndhurst and has three franchise stores in North Jersey. The first, in Englewood, began as a small community grocery in 1992 and caters mainly to Koreans. It was followed by larger supermarkets in Little Ferry and Ridgefield in 1999. The Little Ferry store tends to have more Western products, while the Ridgefield establishment carries more specialized Korean fare, said Kim.
All this variety makes for a diverse shopping crowd at any given time of day. The newspapers and homemade fliers at the entrance may be in Korean, but the sheer breadth and quantity of produce could fuel countless international cuisines, not to mention the good old-fashioned American meal. Produce is commonly labeled in Korean and English, with Chinese added for good measure: Chinese customers are second in numbers only to Koreans, said Kim.
No matter what kind of customer you are, there's a good chance you'll find what you're looking for. Run-of-the-mill string beans are next to mounds of fava and cranberry beans. Four kinds of bok choy are there for the choosing: regular, baby, Shanghai and Taiwanese. You can get either Swiss or Korean chard, and you can even get your hands on collard greens for 99 cents a pound.
Meat and seafood selections also span the world. Whether you are looking for a pig's shank, ears or blood, the shelves are stocked. Cornish hens ($1.99 per pound) and whole rabbits ($2.49 per pound) also are in ready supply. Fish, such as yellow croakers, are generally sold whole -- even fresh -- from the aquarium. Two tanks of blue crabs were seen, alive and scrabbling, at $2.99 per pound.
These, of course, are on top of specialized Korean items that shoppers say are hard to find anywhere else. Asian pears, which look like olive-colored apples, are a popular fruit and gift item for the current harvest season, said Kim. At holidays like the Lunar New Year and Chusok, which will be celebrated this weekend at Overpeck Park in Leonia, rice cakes called "dduk" are key ingredients -- and they are prominently displayed in stores this month for that reason. Flour for Korean pancakes called "pajun" and batter for tempura-like fried "chun" also are on sale.
And if you know anything about Korean food, you know that the pickled vegetables called kimchi are a defining characteristic of any meal. "If I go a week without it, I start missing it," said Jonathon Kim, a Fort Lee resident and one of the organizers of the Leonia Chusok celebration. Luckily for him, H-mart makes fresh kimchi every weekend -- 19 varieties -- at the Ridgefield store.
This is a boon even for Korean home cooks who know how to make their own kimchi, said Andy Kim, 49, of Tenafly. His wife spends "at least 12 hours" rubbing and flavoring the cabbage.
For those of us less in the know, visiting a Korean market is an easy way to get a taste of the cuisine without too much of a kitchen adventure.
E-mail: shih@northjersey.com
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Locations
Where to find Korean supermarkets:
• Han Ah Reum: 260 Bergen Turnpike, Little Ferry (201-814-0400); 321 Broad Ave., Ridgefield (201-943-9600); 25 Lafayette Ave., Englewood (201-871-8822).
• Han Yang Korean Market: 433 South Washington Ave., Bergenfield (201-384-8288).
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Harvest party
A celebration of Chusok, the Korean harvest festival, will take place Saturday and Sunday at Overpeck Park in Leonia starting at 11 a.m. each day. The Korean-American Association of New Jersey is hosting this statewide bash that will include food, performances of traditional dance, fireworks, a soccer match, a kite-flying competition and more. Admission is free.
Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
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