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Ethnic Foodies Find a Friend

Take a whirlwind tour of world foods with Chicago's Ethnic Grocer.

Thursday Aug 26, 2004.     By Chris Benevich

Food Feed

How many times have you run into the same grocery store, made a beeline for the items on your list and left for the comforts of your own kitchen? Forget your routine during a Chicago Ethnic Grocery Tour with Evelyn Thompson.

The nearly four-hour tour (transportation provided) takes you on a trip of the world of food, quite literally. Indian, African, Caribbean, Thai, Greek, Mexican, Middle Eastern and Vietnamese groceries are just a few of the ethnic food outposts that abound in Chicago. Thompson brings them all a little closer to home.

Hitting stores all over town, her approach is "very informal. We'll pick up something to snack on. I bring a picnic basket with a cutting board and napkins. I never give the same talk twice."

On a recent tour, Thompson enters Devon Market, 1440 W. Devon, eyeing the posters of entertainment events and the phone card advertisements. According to Thompson, this will “tell you who’s in the neighborhood.” Further down the aisle, she fingers a glass jar of pickled relish, explaining that fermentation, used as a preservation method for years before electricity, makes canned and pickled vegetables common to this day in Eastern Europe. She reads the label. “You see ‘Croatia.’ I don’t look at the contents. I look at the country of export.”

Thompson teaches how to look at more than labels, introducing “new” (and sometimes intimidating) foods, their histories and preparation tips. In the produce department, she points out hulled coconuts that look like dreidel-shaped chunks. “Whack off the top, insert a straw, and you can drink the ‘coconut water,’” she explains. Looking at the nearby tomatillo (not related to the tomato and a little sweeter), she shares a tip: Add juice of the tomatillo to prevent guacamole from turning brown when served.

Thompson picks up a prickly cactus leaf. Though lacking in taste, she says it “helps control blood pressure and stomach ache,” with its surplus of minerals and fiber, respectively. To use it in meals, chop the cactus leaf and throw it in scrambled eggs or a stir-fry with garlic.

Heading to the meat section of Devon Market, Thompson remarks that ethnic groceries commonly hire trained butchers. “You can’t go to Dominick’s and ask, ‘can you cut my goat leg into one-inch pieces?’ Here, it’s expected.” Thompson, however, did not expect to become Chicago’s Ethnic Grocer. Her second husband liked to cook and she knew Chicago’s neighborhoods well, so she started to write a guidebook of ethnic grocers. She then fell ill for seven years, and many of her carefully indexed stores closed. She used her research to give a presentation about the stores still in existence. Afterwards, people asked if she could just take them to the stores. From then on, her business has been all word-of-mouth, though her Ethnic-grocery-tours.com Web site has brought clients from as far as Denmark.

The majority of Thompson’s clients are, she reports, “foodies who cook or travel or eat extensively.” Most don’t reside in Chicago, don’t know their way around town and want to be introduced to ingredients different from their typical fare. Still, it’s a smart choice for Chicago veterans whose shopping routine rarely takes them beyond the comforts of the major chains. “Once people know where a store is and talk to the store owner, all uncertainty is gone,” says Thompson.

Constantly seeking updated and deeper detail about world food, Thompson has become a speaker and member of the Culinary Historians of Chicago, an organization that features lecturing food authors, restaurant owners and even archeologists. Yet simply talking with people is her biggest source of information. “The more contact I make, the more I know the checkout girls. You can build up a relationship if you want to.”

Thompson founded Chicago Ethnic Grocery Tours at 2010 W. Chase. She will be teaching “Food and Culture” at the University of Illinois this fall. To schedule a tour, visit Ethnic-grocery-tours.com or call (773) 465-8064, ext. 2. A maximum of four guests is preferred; the cost is one person $60, two for $70, three for $85 and four for $110. Optional hotel pick-up and delivery is an additional $20.

How To Eat
You’re likely to pick up ways to slice and dice your new eats. Here are a few of Thompson’s easy fixings:

Appetizer
Buy a good bread and cut it into wedges or thick slices. Spread the bread with a layer of Kajmak, an Eastern European mix of butter and white cheeses, found in/near the dairy case. Spread another layer on the bread with Ajvar. Ajvar is a vegetable spread made with red sweet peppers, paprika, eggplant and garlic in mild or hot flavors.

Lentil Salad
Cook brown lentils until tender. Follow directions on package and adjust amount of dry lentils to suit serving size desired. Drain well. While lentils drain, prepare dressing of olive oil, crushed garlic, lemon juice and salt (or your favorite vinaigrette). Mix dressing lightly into lentils while still warm. Serve warm or cold with sour cream or plain yogurt. Add parsley, dill, cilantro, radishes, capers, scallions or tomatoes to personalize taste.

Breakfast Yogurt Top plain yogurt with grape or date syrup found at Middle Eastern stores (or the Middle Eastern food section of an ethnic grocer). Add chopped walnuts. Or, use chopped dried dates or figs instead of syrup.