
How Goya brought ethnic food to white America - ilamont
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/23/how-goya-brought-ethnic-food-to-white-america/?hpid=z1
======
mynameishere
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_cuisine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_cuisine)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_cuisine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_cuisine)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_cuisine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_cuisine)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_cuisine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_cuisine)

etc times 100. I'm sure we all appreciate Goya for helping to keep the dying
Washington Post alive with their paid-for articles, but the headline is absurd
on its face. I mean, I have distinct memories of eating Mexican food long
before I heard of Goya corporation. And I'm pretty sure black beans and kidney
beans were not unheard-of as well.

To be fair, the reporter's original headline might have been, "A short
corporate biography of Goya Foods", only to be changed by the editor to
something more eye-catching.

~~~
rmc
It's a caled "othering" or "exoticification". Yes there is English, German,
etc. cuisine, and all of these are 'ethnicities'. But sometimes people treat
ethnicities of 'The Other'[1] as 'ethnic' or 'exotic'.

[1] Us vs. Them stuff here. Who is 'Us', and who is 'Them'/'The Other' depends
on where you are.

------
seanmcdirmid
Now who will bring white ethnic food to Han China? Seriously, I get depressed
whenever I have to settle for expensive frozen sausage from Nick's or Jenny's
in Beijing (our only chance t ethnic food). And let's not even get started on
high quality flower needed for real baking. At least they sell green curry
packets and jasmine rice at Carrefour.

~~~
kyllo
Haha. When I was in China, one of my American friends there freaked out
because he couldn't find a bottle of ranch dressing anywhere. Of all things,
ranch dressing. He apparently liked to dip everything he ate in it back home.

About a week before I left, they opened up the first Subway restaurant in the
city. I went on the first day it was open, and there was a line of white
people coming out the door. I used to take Subway (and cold cuts and
sandwiches in general) completely for granted, but a year in China will make
it sound pretty damn good.

~~~
pubby
Ranch dressing, peanut butter, and root beer: 3 staples you might not find
outside of the USA.

~~~
davidw
Here in Italy, peanut butter is actually surprisingly available. Ranch
dressing can be found here and there, and root beer is of course completely
unheard of because it's an acquired taste that most people who haven't grown
up with it dislike.

I'm going to be back in the US in a week, and I can't wait to eat:

* Mexican

* Bagels

* Barbecue

* Thai

* Mexican

* Mexican

* Mexican

~~~
kyllo
I've lived in China and Korea, and surprisingly, pretty good Mexican food was
available in both places. Somewhat less surprisingly, good Thai food was also
available.

Good cheeses, breads, and wines, however, were not. And if you did manage to
find them somewhere, the price was double what you'd pay in the US.

~~~
davidw
Heh - good cheeses and wines are already expensive in the US compared to here.

------
xelipe
This article is very east coast biased. For someone that grew up in Northern
California I always found Goya is too Spanish and not as common out here than
it is in the East Coast. I tend to opt for El Mexicano products, especially
since it has a more Mexican flavor and it is a Bay Area company.

One of the great things about the Bay Area is that there are a ton of ethnic
grocery stores, such as Mi Pueblo and Ranch 99.

~~~
wildgift
Definitely, but the paper it was in was the Washington Post. If they printed
that in the Chron or LA Times, people would take it for a joke.

------
mathattack
When I went to the nearby Western Beef I was very surprised to see all kinds
of sections, and then a Goya section. Over time I learned that I could find
things there that I couldn't find for recipes elsewhere. But there wasn't a
General Mills section. This article helps explain it.

------
giardini
I asked for directions from a fellow who was restocking in a local market. He
deferred, explaining that he worked for Goya, not for the store. He was
responsible for all the Goya products in the store (and other stores) and that
the aisle we were in was dedicated solely to Goya products.

I worked for a supermarket when in high school and only store employees
handled goods inside the building. Here the store allowed control of an entire
aisle to Goya. And believe me, shelf space is at the very core of retail
sales.

~~~
mbell
Currently hacking away on the food industry:

It's common practice for a distributor to handle stocking of product in
some/many locations, it's referred to as 'merchandising' in the industry, it's
often limited to speciality products. Given the comment I think the
interesting thing is that either Goya is doing their own distribution or has
subcontracted that out or has a special distributor relationship in some way.
It's relatively uncommon for products which are in the supermarket 'core'
(true for Goya at least of my local stores) to get this treatment, so that
seems to say something about Goya.

This is also very common in the alcohol industry, e.g. the huge Bud Light
displays you'll see in stores are usually setup by distributors, not the store
owner.

~~~
astrogirl
Kellogg and Nabisco often stock the shelves themselves as well. And the
Asian/International aisle is stocked by the vendor sometimes as well.

------
jmspring
Good thing I live in a place where people of different cultures talk to one
another, exchange food ideas, and with some hunting you can get the
ingredients you need. Specialty ethnic food stores help as well. Maybe it is
the willingness to explore and not shop at places like Safeway and the other
big chains?

I've purchased a Goya product or two when it was the only variety available.
That said, if I need asafetida (a spice) for an Indian dish I'm not going to
look to Goya. When I need tortillas for tacos, I'll buy locally made instead
of Goya or Mission. (tortillas are a silly example given the diversity in the
bay area...but I don't know what the big chains actually carry...)

I'm not afraid to pickup a random cookbook (be it southern cooking to
pakistani to peruvian) and attempt to cook something. If ingredients aren't
available, be creative and substitute.

This seems like one more "homogenization" of the US.

~~~
tptacek
How, exactly, does getting tamarind and nopalitos into the aisles of Safeway
count as "homogenization"?

~~~
graeme
I think he means: everyone eats the same thing

Meaning, we all eat the same brand "diverse" foods, rather than seek out the
originals from locals of that cuisine.

~~~
tptacek
Mexican people do not as a general rule go into the fields to pick tomatillos.
We're talking about the raw materials of ethnic recipes, not freezer-pak
reheatable Mexi-meals.

~~~
graeme
What tedunangst said. If everyone can access the same thing in the same
stores, then there is homogeneity in what is available.

I don't think homogeneity ought to have any negative connotation, used in this
way. I'm also not sure the OP meant it negatively, though he might have.

~~~
tptacek
I took his comment as snark.

~~~
graeme
I couldn't get a clear tone from it. But downvotes of the comment indicate I
am in the minority.

What makes the comments on HN small? Yours currently is.

------
kumarski
I'm confused. I posted this a day ago....why has it reappeared?

~~~
tedunangst
you didn't include the sweet ?hpid=z1 tracker at the end of the url.

------
chrismealy
tl;dr: they put it in cans.

------
mhurron
And here I thought immigrants did. Silly me, forgetting to thank our corporate
overlords.

~~~
potatolicious
How'd you get that out of the article?

The whole thing was about Goya, an immigrant-founded and immigrant-owned
enterprise, relying heavily on immigrant populations to break into
predominantly-White areas, and expanding into non-Latino immigrant populations
through diversification of products.

There's even the bit about continuing to employ and appeal to new immigrants
in order to maintain authenticity in the product lineup. There's also the bit
about rejecting traditional distribution models typical of a large food
producer and instead favoring a distribution model that allows tailoring the
inventory mix with independent retailers (immigrant-operated, like the Korean
grocer the article names as an example) in local immigrant communities.

TIL immigrants are no longer immigrants if they demonstrate entrepreneurial
spirit.

~~~
tptacek
Every damn thread on this site has at least one and often many comments just
like the one you responded to. Telltale signal: it could have been written
without even reading the article.

