Why Vermont?
This Japanese grocery sits side-by-side with a companion housewares business and sports a snack counter operated by Chiyoda Sushi, one of its prime provisioners. Among the offerings on the neatly stocked shelves are several varieties of the improbably named Vermont Curry sauce mix (125 g.; $2.19). In common with other Japanese curries, the end product is a gooey brown, thickened with wheat flour and corn starch, that's closer to sweet than spicy, even if you opt for the "hot." A "touch of honey and apple" may be the inspiration for "Vermont," though how those ingredients came to be added in the first place is a mystery to me. (Question: Does their use predates the postwar Allied occupation of Japan?)
Though pleasant, the Katagiri staff can offer only limited guidance to non-speakers of Japanese, so if you're planning to shop and not merely sightsee, it's better to know your way around the cuisine. On one early visit I picked up a box of dessert mix (below; $2.15) with the hope of preparing something like Junket, a hard-to-find American dessert mix that's no longer available in orange. The best translation I could get at the store was that the flavor was some sort of "cream"; after preparing it according to the picture instructions, I still couldn't pin it down.
A more ambitious experiment was with a sac of tarako, or salted codfish roe (0.7 oz. at $47 per pound, or $3.29). Spooned free of the casing and into a butter-based sauce, the roe eventually found its way atop my pasta dinner, with middling results.
Katagiri & Co.
224 East 59th St. (Second-Third Aves.)
212-755-3566
www.Katagiri.com
