Latin American Groceries by Weezilou

Latin American Groceries

...and we were back today! We found foods that simply aren't available in the local Southern California grocery stores, and we feel as though we've struck gold! If you like to shop in "foreign grocery stores" as I do when we travel, here were some of my finds:
Left & around the top:

Peruvian toasting corn...doesn't pop fluffy, but has a nice crunchy corn taste when it puffs up. (Think "Corn Nuts")

Ceviche...*when* I can find this, it's at a boutique grocery at a premium price. It's made of fresh white fish + tomatoes, onion, cilantro & jalapenos & soaked overnight in a lime and vinegar mix. I can easily eat that container in one sitting, and oh my it's good!

Those tasty crunchy wafer cookies...Found them in Mango & guava flavors!

Guava juice...mixed it 1/2 & 1/2 with fresh squeezed orange juice... A taste of Heaven!

Center back...Mini corn tortillas...hot from the oven...60 for $1.99

On the basket are
Guava Paste...I quested for this for years! it pairs beautifully with cheeses and crackers. My Lunenburg friend from So Africa has me bring her back pounds of it!

The cone is solid brown sugar... I had to buy it because I wasn't sure what it was...and I'm still not sure how I'd use it, but to nibble on it! I also found "hard-sugared" pumpkin, sweet potato and coconut. I can't begin to tell you how good a slice of those are!

On the tray, *huge* avocados, 5 (weighing 4#) for $5... we'll be having guacamole with Mexican food tonight! (The smaller light green avocado is from our tree. They're smaller this year (or we're picking them early) but they're SO plentiful!)

Yellow fruit are guava...a childhood favorite and fabulous in smoothies! We have three trees of them with so much fruit, most is thrown out. Of course that all happens while we're in NS, so I had to have some this year! (9/$1.50)

By the pelican, Mangos 2/$3 Haven't found them so large and so perfect before now!

There's also a crispy pastry...four, actually...in the plastic bag. Basically puff pastry with cinnamon sugar, so tasty and crunchy...

I just had to share and for myself, I had to save this information! Much as I love Lunenburg, I'm going to have to make do for 6 months with what I can carry back in a suitcase!

The tortilla factory in the grocery is here http://365project.org/Weezilou/album-excess/2016-02-29
Wow, incredible your S Cal stores don't carry this stuff?
March 3rd, 2016  
@danette Yes to avocados and smaller mangos. Tortillas, of course, but not close to the variety that had here. Guava, no, and no to the rest of the items you see here!
March 3rd, 2016  
@danette You live in FL with the large Cuban and Latino population... Do you find a crossover in your major grocery stores? Would you go to a Cuban grocery for specialized foods?
March 3rd, 2016  
great collection of goodies Louise - I shop in multicultural grocery stores all the time - will have to look up a Latin American one although we can get a lot just in our regular supermarkets too
March 3rd, 2016  
Cool! Guava paste with cheese and crackers, I need to try that!!
March 3rd, 2016  
Some delicious items there, and a nice arrangement as well. I love the penguin :)
March 3rd, 2016  
@fjmom Thanks, Carol! (Pelican ; )
March 3rd, 2016  
Louise, I can't believe I called that a penguin!! I was able to take some photos of pelicans recently, and every time I talk about a pelican, 'penguin' comes out instead....
March 3rd, 2016  
Well, haven't we both had a good laugh then! @fjmom
March 3rd, 2016  
Yep!
March 3rd, 2016  
What's for dinner?? :)
March 3rd, 2016  
@sstcowan funny you should ask! Though perhaps you were just being rhetorical, I heated the small tortillas and topped them with (shredded beef) carne asada, guacamole (with 2 of the avocados), fresh pico de gallo (not shown) & salsa. YUM! Also had a side of the cevichi and some fresh made corn chips...also delicious!
March 3rd, 2016  
You live somewhere where you can grow avocados!? Heaven! Insanely nutritious, delicious things. Come to Walthamstow, where every other shop is a 'foreign grocery store', we're very multicultural here, great for shopping!
March 3rd, 2016  
@Weezilou Wow, that sounds delicious. Even better when it is so fresh.
March 3rd, 2016  
@boxplayer That sounds wonderful, but I'm curious... We live near an area where Mexicans congregate...one of many locations, but nearby. We also live near a Vietnamese area (even called "Little Saigon") There are others like Koreatown and Little Tokyo, but they're in the LA area. But here, the signage and language is mostly (in those cases) Spanish or Vietnamese. I can speak a little Spanish, but few in the grocery spoke English. I cannot read or understand Vietnamese, so I don't even set foot in the stores though I might like when they offered for sale. They tend to cater to their own. Four visits now to the grocery and I saw no one who wasn't Latino (shopping). It's even taken me forever to find it and it was close by all this time. The Orange County and Southern California lifestyle travels behind the wheel of a car and few people are out walking. I think what you describe is unlike life out here. I'd love to have what you have, but am curious about the language thing!
March 3rd, 2016  
@Weezilou London as you probably know is very multicultural but generally all the different national and ethnic groups are mixed in together with each other and the indigenous population so areas that are just identified with one group are rare (possibly Chinatown in the centre or the Bsngalis in central East London might be the nearest thing but even then the populations there are still quite diverse). So you get lots of different community shops in one area. Customers can be drawn mainly from that group but often there'll be a mix of customers too as everyones used to mixing it up in London and there aren't generally language issues.
March 3rd, 2016  
@boxplayer "Lucky you"! I can go to a neighbourhood Mexican grocery in my daughter's Chicago neighbourhood, and everyone speaks English. Over here, even when we watch the news, children will be translating for their parents if they're being interviewed for a news story. The communities make it "easy" for people to not have to learn English. I would love to have the variety you speak of...and come to think of it, my daughter in Chicago has just that in the area she lives in...Spanish, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Japanese and Mediterranean are the first that come to mind...oh and the Swedish bakery! Her neighbourhood is called Andersonville and began as a Swedish enclave, but you can see the changes that were made. And people walk along the streets there, shopping. Again, so different from the Southern California lifestyle!
March 3rd, 2016  
Wonderful haul you have there! I do miss those little grocery stores down in California. Since moving north, we've only found one for authentic Mexican foods.
March 3rd, 2016  
@noko411 If it's authentic, "one" is all you need! Ken and I feel as though we've struck gold! And BTW, this grocery is huge...the size of any Ralph's, if you're familiar with them!
March 3rd, 2016  
@Weezilou Ours is tiny, but it is connected to a "hole-in-the-wall" restaurant that is fabulous.
March 3rd, 2016  
What a selection I haven't eaten guava since living in Africa 39 years ago! I do get and love mangoes and avocados and tortillas but the range in Cornwall is lmited. Great display
March 3rd, 2016  
Me gusta, el tema y la composiciĆ³n. La luz puede mejorarse. Mi humilde opiniĆ³n.
March 3rd, 2016  
we have much of this in the super market....tiny avocados though.....but i buy freshly made tamales at the little mexican markets.
March 3rd, 2016  
What a delicious collection! We have REALLY good avocados in Uganda, but other that that, multicultural foods are hard to come by here too in normal groceries!
March 3rd, 2016  
Some tasty foods here Louise. I think I need to go shopping!
March 3rd, 2016  
Love those foreign markets........ especially in their native country. For instance ......Love papaya and got my share on our recent trip.
March 3rd, 2016  
@aglennc LOVE papaya, too! Another food I'd happily eat daily! Lucky you to have had access! Did you buy it where you stopped or did they have plenty on board?
March 3rd, 2016  
The fruits are on our market to buy too. The others , I do n`t know as I seldom do the shopping. I`m only the personal driver for Ina.
March 3rd, 2016  
And eloquent writing is another one of your talents. You had my mouth watering every paragraph. I'm sure I would have been worrying if everything was suitable for American digestive systems and you just embraced the experience. Good for you!
March 3rd, 2016  
@Weezilou we have all kinds of different foods. I didn't realize that until 2 years ago when a chef gave me recipes to use for 30 days. Each one sent me on missions to find this stuff! I was used to shopping at Publix. Now, I see Publix has a wide variety of ethnic foods. We have a local store that carries so many things. We have a farmers market where sellers come from Miami with their unique fruits. We have Jamaicans with their needs. Now, I find it exciting to search for these lesser known items. I think we have at least 7 types of grocery stores here, some of which are completely Hispanic.
March 4th, 2016  
Stop it, stop it, stop it Louise. It's nearly teatime and you've started my stomach rumbling. Most undignified. What a wonderful collection there, it's easy to see why you're so pleased to have found that shop. Thanks for the detailed descriptions.
March 4th, 2016  
@Weezilou On board, mostly. They had trays of it every morning and noon in the buffet. I had chilled papaya soup one night for dinner first course, a papaya sundae another meal, and even papaya crisp. All delicious.
March 4th, 2016  
@aglennc Well I NEVER heard of papaya crisp, but it sounds divine! Like you, I would have ordered it all! (And that's the best part of cruise dining!) (I just wrote to friends tonight to tell them about your sailing experience! Mike, Ken and I really would love to go to the Antarctic, but Mike's wife want no part of it! I must learn more and share more about it!
March 4th, 2016  
what a treasure trove you found! Nothing beats good food. Am sure you will enjoy every bite.
March 4th, 2016  
@Weezilou We'll never be able top this cruise. And we were so fortunate.... Of the nine Antarctica trips Holland America made this season, (and we were the last), only two cruises were able to see everything on the schedule -- all channels, canals, etc. The other seven were unable to go into some of the areas we did because of bad weather. We had perfect weather the entire trip. We highly recommend this entire voyage. (HA is still doing the "around Cape Horn" cruises until the ship comes around to San Diego for our summer Alaska runs on April.) When I get our album done, we'll show you our photos and journaling. IIt will be awhile, but I'm working on it now..... a major and long project after every trip..
March 4th, 2016  
What an intriguing thread! As well as window into your culinary skills!
March 5th, 2016  
Leave a Comment
Sign up for a free account or Sign in to post a comment.