Eating In Translation

Cote's Market

In the neighborhood of Lowell, Massachusetts, once known as Little Canada, Saturday is the biggest bean-selling day of the week. Though you may encounter Red Sox hats and Patriots sweats, at Cote's you'll also find that the beans bear scant resemblance to the treacly product made famous by the Beantown to the south. Cote's stock in trade is unsweetened: The principal requirements are small, firm white beans, a hefty amount of salt pork, a large pot, and lots of patience.

My article "The Beans of Lowell, Mass." appears in Issue 91 of The Art of Eating. The article itself is not available online; New Yorkers who don't subscribe can find the magazine at Kitchen Arts and Letters.

Cote's Market
175 Salem St. (near Morey Pl.), Lowell, Massachusetts
978-458-4635
Closed Wednesday and Sunday
(From visits in August 2012, and previously)

Phien's Kitchen

Though the menu makes plain that these are hand-stuffed, the sausage is its own best evidence.

Ray Robinson's Sandwich Shoppe

Yes, Chinese chop suey can be had nearby; this is what the locals call American chop suey.

Dana's Luncheonette

At first I didn't see why the counterman was taking a fork to my lime rickey.

Excel Bottled Liquors

It occured to me only afterward: Why bother to specify "bottled"? Draft beer to go, at least in legal forms, faded from the public eye in the decades leading up to Prohibition. It's hip again, thanks to a resurgence of craft brewing in recent years, but the typography of the sign suggests that it was designed and mounted long before any such distinction would have been needed. If you were buying liquors, of course they'd be bottled. The reason is probably buried deep within the state liquor laws; this seems to be a Massachusetts thing.

Excel Bottled Liquors (a.k.a. Excel Package Store)
613 Merrimack St. (Cabot-Suffolk Sts.), Lowell, Massachusetts
978-452-1601

Southeast Asian Water Festival

Pass the baton!

Prachum Benda festival

Also called Pchum Ben, this Buddhist festival is a time for Cambodians to pay respect to their deceased relatives.

Vientiane Grocery & Video

In Southeast Asia, sliced dried bael fruit (200 g., $3.49) is used to prepare a medicinal infusion; elsewhere it can also be found in ready-to-mix, sweetened form. Apart from spicy tamarind paste, Vientiane Grocery sells little in the way of prepared or homemade food and, if you discount the videos and knickknacks, apparently nothing imported from Laos.

I did observe packages of chewing tobacco, on open shelves rather than behind the counter, accompanied by lime paste. Also a frequent ingredient in paan, lime paste sensitizes the inside of the mouth and enhances the potency of the chaw, for good or ill.

Vientiane Grocery & Video
426 Chelmsford St. (near Factory St.), Lowell, Massachusetts
978-937-9399
(From a September 2011 visit)

Jujube truck

Jujubes suggest ovoid crabapples free of acidity.

Red Rose Restaurant

Lemon sour soup with chicken and banana flower ($9.50).

Red Rose Restaurant
716 Middlesex St. (near Branch St., in Pailin Plaza), Lowell, Massachusetts
978-452-5400
(From an August 2009 visit)