A Foodie Tour Around the Globe

You can tell a lot about a culture and it’s history by experiencing it’s food,  Lowell has a rich history of immigration and as such we have a rich culinary tradition.  Over the past few weeks I have been lucky enough to visit several culinary establishments within lowell who represent three different nations.

The first place I visited was Rancho Tipico, a Guatemalan joint.  The store is on the corner of Salem and Cabot street, a rough neighborhood. It’s patinad facade looked like  something out of Breaking Bad. Think “Pollos Hermanos” crossed with a small town deli and you have Rancho Tipico.  The inside of Tipico is chaos, locals crowd the tiny ordering area shouting over each other in spanish.  When I got in everyone sort of turned and looked at me funny before getting back to shouting.  As I scanned the menu I realized this was not your typical burrito and taco affair, this place wasn’t  Americanized, there was no orange cheese,  hard shell tacos, or “gringo” burgers to be found.  Quickly realising that I could turn this experience into a FYSH paper I decided to be as adventurous as possible and order things I had never tried before.  When it came my time to order I started only to realise that the cashier did not speak much english.  After an awkward few moments she fetched the manager, I got the oxtail soup “a local favorite” the manager told me.  Along with this I got an order of fried plantains and a pupusa.  I assumed the oxtail would be tough and gamey but instead it was tender and mostly beefy, the fried plantains were sweet, starchy and delicious. Finally was the pupusa which was soft, warm, cheesy, and a couple hundred more positive adjectives.  

I chose these items partly because I wanted to try new things and partly because I felt they represent Central American culture, a culture that is heavily represented in Lowell. For much of their history the people of central America have faced poverty. The expense of meat means that all of an animal must be used, fputting non choice cuts of meat such as tongue and tail into soups also stretches out food to feed more people.  Plantains also play a large part role in the Latin American diet, which makes sense because they are pretty delicious.  Finally my favorite part of my meal, the pupusa.  Pupusa’s are fresh baked corn  tortillas stuffed with cheese, beans and beef.  They are easy to make, filling, cheap, and can be eaten quickly, in other words the perfect food for workers who need some good tasting energy. The life of many hispanic immigrants is hard, working long hours for little pay, and the hardy pupusa provides them fuel in their quest for the American dream

(added side note: much to the shagrin of Rancho Tipico employees, pupusa is slang for vagina).  

The next stop on my culinary world tour brought me a few blocks down the street to Vietnam, or rather a Vietnamese sub shop and grocery.  The shop can be found in the most nondescript corner of an already nondescript stripmall. Above it’s door stands the sign that initially led me to it “Hong Cuc sandwich” naturally after seeing this I mentally switched the “O” and the “u” and then it was love at first sight.   The inside of the shop was culture shock, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn’t recognize a single item offered in the entire grocery section of the bodega. The snack section offered huge freeze dried and pressed frozen squid snacks,salted papaya and mango chips, and all manner of assorted fruits.  I made my way  through the candy section like an awestruck Augustus Gloop, there were colorful “my first jello shot” candy cup things, bags of neon sugary liquid, and every form of pokki under the sun.  The main draw of the shop however was the sandwiches, which contained various and assundry meats and vegetables, piled on to crispy baguette style bread.  I ordered “the combo” a complex mix of pad thai, head cheese, pickled carrots and onions and a mayo spread.  Despite the head cheeses general bizarre nature,  I found that the sandwich was suited to my western taste, the mix of onions and mayo gave me the impression that I was eating cheese on the sandwich.  Yet it left a strange aftertaste that I couldn’t quite pin, all in all I found the experience quite rewarding and tasty.

It turns out that subs such as this have there own name in vietnam, “Banh Mi”, the popular Sandwich tells the story of Vietnam’s colonial past.  By pairing together traditional Vietnamese ingredients such as pickled carrots, onions, and Pad Thai with french Baguettes and baking techniques we see the clash of two cultures, a mix of both old and new.  The other cultural tidbit I gleaned at Hong Cuc was the importance of such local markets,  the sense of community I got when I walked in.  It was obvious this place was cherished amongst the Vietnamese community, people were gossiping with the grocers and men were sitting watching a soap opera on an old tv, the area in front seemed to be a gathering place for locals.  It just goes to show that where ever good familiar food is made, people will flock.

My final destination on my food tour was Cambodia, to the upscale restaurant Tepthida Khmer.  Tepthida Khmer differed from my other stop because it was not a casual gathering space, visiting Tepthida felt more like visiting a temple than it did a restaurant.  The ambience

In closing, my local culinary tour showed me quite a bit about the different ethnicities of Lowell, their histories, and their traditions.  After exploring each of these places I feel like I am both wiser and more of a member in the Lowell community, and it didn’t hurt that I got to eat a bunch of good food either.