Trotters are the feet, right? I’ve seen them in Demoulas and possibly Trucchi’s and Shaws (or is Shaws Star in MA?). Creeps me out more to see them in the meatcase than pickled, for some reason…
No traditional butchers shops in the US anymore? Sad if your only source of meat is a supermarket (of any nationality).
I wouldn’t buy meat or fish from anywhere I wasn’t sure if the quality, storage, or source, but for quality rather than health considerations. I also prefer to buy local, rather than something that has been shipped across several continents.
How are you going to keep a rolling boil for 40 hours? You’ll have to leave it at some point. Slow cookers hardly boil things.
Not necessarily. In some cases, bacteria grow in poorly handled food and release toxins. You can then boil the hell out of the food and kill off the bacteria but the toxins will still be there.
Asians have always followed the “suki” system in the traditional market place. The word means a regular (both the customer and the seller.) That’s how quality is more or less assured, and price haggling is softened.
But in my country, things are getting pretty bad with regard to quality assurance and people are increasingly turning to branded meats sold in shopping centers to assure quality.
Yeah–whether it’s an “Asian” store or not, I don’t see why the shopping would be any different. I assume that all stores get inspected in the the same way.
I live in Thaitown (East Hollywood), and we always get our seafood at the closest neighborhood (Thai) market. Not only is it a clean place, but the seafood is generally better than from other places, if you know what to buy.
If they were selling contaminated food on a regular basis, wouldn’t the word get out pretty fast?
Heh, when I lived in Philly one reason I loved going to the Market was a certain Asian-owned seafood store. They had many kinds of fish I didn’t see in the big supermarkets and would prepare them the ways I’m used to, upon request (unlike in the supermarkets).
I’ve bought meat at all kinds of ethnic markets, including Chinese and Vietnamese and Korean, and never had a problem. I’ve bought far crappier meat from the chain supermarkets around here, frankly. Just look at the meat counter and see what the turnover is like.
If you’re that nervous, why don’t you talk to someone at your regular market and see if they can come up with some trotters for you?
I live near an Asian market and the meat and fish always looks clean and fresh. I like getting flank or skirt steak which make killer tacos. The fruit and vegetable department looks a little sketchy, but I’ve never had problems with bad food.
Nah, we still have butcher shops and fishmongers in big cities at least.
Some examples where I live:
http://www.davidsmeatmarket.com/
http://www.kubys.com/retail.asp
http://www.yelp.com/biz/packing-house-market-inc-dallas
These folks come to my local farmer’s market:
http://www.alphaomegaacres.com/
http://grazedbeef.com/meet-the-ranchers-of-grazed.html
http://juhacattlecompany.com/ (we like their meat, and they’re cool folks too)
and for seafood:
http://www.dmagazine.com/Home/D_Magazine/2010/May/The_Best_Seafood_Markets_in_Dallas.aspx
(I go to Rex’s or Central Market, myself.)
Not really pertinent to your line of inquiry but I’ve lived in a few Asian cities. They sell food that is open to the elements; I buy it and cook it, and have never had a problem. I’ll also try street food and won’t become sick after - I see it cooked in front of me and I figure they don’t want to lose my custom, so it’s always cooked well. The only problem I’ve had is a reaction to the MSG that a lot of retailers add, but that’s a different issue altogether.
'Course, we haven’t had to recommission 13mw power plants just to incinerate hundreds of thousands of tons of contaminated bone meal. Cheval lasagna isn’t making big inroads, either. 
On a side note, oddly enough, here in California, I can buy both jarred pig’s feet and Kimchi…in Safeway. Huh.
If you’re really concerned about the safety of the meat, maybe you could find a university with a Cobalt-60 irradiator—North Carolina State University, for example—that uses it for sterilizing instruments and biological samples, and zap your trotters. That’d do it…maybe you could make a deal to do it as part of a training course, or for a share of the finished ramen, or something.
Raley’s, Bel Air and Whole Foods carry uncooked pig’s feed here in CA as well. My local natural foods co-op has them from time to time. I find it hard to believe you cannot get them at a “regular” supermarket.
Dare I say it? BAND NAME!
Depends on where you live, perhaps?
Trotters might pop up once in a while in my local supermarket, but that’s it. It’s obviously not an item that’s regularly in stock.
I can get pigs feet a t a number of places. But what I cant find is raw hocks. Why does every damn ham hock have to be smoked? Finding an unprocessed hock is like finding the freaking Holy Grail around here.
This might have an implication on sanitation, but people in Asian cities can usually access an abattoir somewhere in the city. That’s why they can buy freshly butchered parts like the ones mentioned. I trot to the nearest abattoir at 4AM to get freshly cut pork loin and tail (both for making soup.)
I suppose in some US cities, the nearest slaughter house could be hundreds of miles away?
Thanks for all the replies guys. I made the trek back to the store two days ago and bought the pig trotters, and I am SO glad I did, because as soon as those babies started to boil the room filled up with the wonderful smell of ramen shop. What was gross was that on the same shelf as the trotters there was a package of pig intestines that had a sell by date of 9/11 (it was 9/14) and were clearly starting to decompose.
This was one of the big ‘culture shock’ things I had to adjust to when I moved to southeast Asia (where, as you might guess, there are a lot of Asian markets).
There is a big market near me that feel like it must be a dozen acres in size, and they sell meat all day and all night. There is no air conditioning and the place often has the faint odor of rotting meat, but I have never had any kind of bad experience from eating things that I’ve bought there.
Animal blood and other fluids are allowed to run onto the floor and drain into a common gutter, which is theoretically supposed to channel everything out of the market. But there isn’t a continuous flow of water through this gutter, so anything that drops into it just sits there and slowly decays until the end of the day when barrels of water are splashed around to wash everything out. I suspect that the general “off” smell of the market isn’t from spoiled meat on the vendor’s tables, but from the waste and runoff that is allowed to pool in the gutters.
They do a good job of cleaning up at the end of the day, scrubbing down their tables and floors with what smells like bleached water.
I’ve been seriously food-poisoned three times in my life:
- From a 7-11 in Washington DC (a pre-made Italian cold-cut sub wrapped in cellophane and not past its sell-by date).
- From a KFC in Manhattan.
- From an upscale Thai restaurant in Silver Spring, MD. This incident ended up with me getting Hep-A.
Since I’ve been living abroad, I haven’t had a problem aside from the occasional case of the trots. Granted I lived in the USA for 45 years and in Thailand for 2, so I still have 43 years to catch up.
But having experienced both systems, I think I prefer the Asian system where you can closely inspect (including smell) whatever you buy before it gets wrapped up. Back home I wouldn’t have known if something was rotten until I got home and opened it up.
Apparently, smoked pork hocks are very, very valuable. Or at least, that’s the impression I get from the prices that are on them. I look at the price per pound of a smoked pork hock, and then I decide that I’m better off just getting a ham steak or smoked pork chop.