Angry Little Asian Girl!
A weekly comic strip about a girls who are disenchanted, crazy, gloomy, fresh
and all around angry. Read more
Ethnic Flavors on Menu
As more Americans develop a taste for fare available in other countries, gourmet
stores are proliferating and sales are surging. But as Americans develop
global palates and become more willing to pay a premium for specialty foods,
that's changed. Read more
Angry Little Asian Girl!
Excerpt from PBS.org
 Episode
3 in the series profiles Lela Lee, a Korean American
actress struggling to make it in Hollywood and a cartoonist
unleashing anger through pen and paper. A graduate of
UC Berkeley, Lela is the creator of "Angry Little
Asian Girl," a series of short films about a cute
but acidly funny Asian American girl who tackles racism
and gender issues with a surly attitude sprinkled with
some choice foul language. Launched in 1996, the short
films struck a massive cultural nerve, not only with
Asians, but with women everywhere. The series' unexpected
success led to dreams of an empire. Today, the initial
short films have expanded to a web comic series called "Angry
Little Girls," which averages roughly 750,000 hits
a month. Lela Lee's story puts a personal spin on Asian
Americans in the media and the challenges of being an
Asian American woman. For more information, you can visit www.angrylittlegirls.com.
TRENDS: SPECIALTY FOODS
Ethnic Flavors on Menu
By John Schmeltzer, Tribune staff reporter
Published May 23, 2005
As more Americans develop a taste for fare
available in other countries, gourmet stores are proliferating
and sales are surging.
There wasn't much demand 20 years ago for
fancy, authentic Italian foods when John Nitti shuttered
his small grocery on Chicago's Near West Side.
But as Americans develop global palates and
become more willing to pay a premium for specialty foods,
that's changed.
Now Nitti, who 10 years ago began importing
food from Italy, is operating Isola Imports Inc., a business
that is growing so rapidly that it recently moved to a
massive warehouse formerly occupied by the Greater Chicago
Food Depository.
"Twenty years ago the only gourmet food
store in Chicago was Treasure Island," said Edward
Chen, banquet manager for the Hilton Chicago hotel, noting
that the grocery chain has been joined by a host of gourmet
stores, including Whole Foods Market and Fox & Obel
Food Market.
"We are witnessing a major food explosion," said
Chen. "High-end is definitely the way people are going.
The younger generation have found out what is quality food
and they are demanding it."
It's a trend that the National Restaurant
Association show, which opened Saturday at McCormick Place,
is hoping to capitalize on.
"What once seemed foreign is now becoming
mainstream, and the craving for more and different foods
continues to grow as the palates of American diners become
more sophisticated," said Steven Anderson, president
and chief executive of the restaurant association.
In addition to the normal array of food suppliers
that will be demonstrating their latest products at the
four-day show, food suppliers from Brazil, New Zealand,
Australia, Japan, China, El Salvador, Nigeria, Mexico and
nearly a dozen other countries will for the first time
be attending the show.
"Everyone in the restaurant industry
is looking for ways to stand apart, while providing the
quality dishes their guests want," said Anderson.
Specialty food sales are the biggest growth
segment in the nation's food industry, according to the
National Association for the Specialty Food Trade.
Sales of specialty foods rose 16 percent
between 2002 and 2004, to $24.7 billion, according to the
association.
At the same time, sales of those foods increasingly
are shifting away from supermarkets to specialty and natural
food stores. Sales at specialty food stores rose nearly
20 percent between 2002 and 2004, while sales at natural
food stores rose more than 35 percent during the two-year
period.
The changing tastes can most easily be seen
at the nation's restaurants.
"Many purchases of specialty foods for
home use are influenced by purchasers' experiences in restaurants," according
to the association. "A consumer may purchase a specialty
sauce or dressing after having sampled a food with a similar
flavor profile in a restaurant."
While so-called American restaurants remain
the dominant choice for many people in this country--76
percent in a survey told the association that they visited
one of those restaurants in the past six months--increasingly
consumers say they are visiting other restaurants.
According to the association, 57 percent
of those surveyed said they had also eaten at a Chinese
restaurant in the past six months. The survey also showed
that 56 percent said they visited an Italian restaurant,
53 percent ate in a Mexican restaurant and 27 percent dined
at an Asian restaurant.
As a result of the rapidly shifting American
tastes the Hilton's Chen said small importers increasingly
are being used to supply the growing need for high-quality
specialty foods that large food distributors don't want
to invest the time or money to stock.
Hilton and other large food operations, which
for years relied upon large suppliers for ingredients,
now are turning to the smaller boutique importers to meet
the growing demand.
Among them are Isola for Italian specialties,
Patel Brothers for Indian and Pakistani foods, Mexicali
Food Products Inc. for Mexican and other Hispanic foods,
and Krinos Food for Greek ingredients.
"We import from India, Pakistan, Turkey,
Britain, Mexico and South America," said Mafat Patel,
an owner of Patel Brothers, which has a retail store on
Chicago's Devon Avenue.
Patel says he can document the rapid increase
in business.
Ten years ago Patel Brothers was importing
about 1,000 items. Now the firm said it is importing 2,000
items, including many spices that are difficult to find
in normal supermarkets.
Nitti said his firm, which is distributing
food products to Detroit, Minnesota, St. Louis and Denver,
is experiencing similar growth due to the changing tastes.
"Fifteen to 20 years ago Italian food
in the U.S. was pasta and meatballs," Nitti said. "Americans
had never tasted fresh mozzarella. Now American people
want the high-end gourmet foods, such as truffles, that
we and only five or six other importers across the country
are bringing in." |
