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By Katie Connors
Stacks of red, yellow and blue containers line the Hispanic food aisle in an Erwin store. Some gleam with pictures of sliced cactus, others with colorful whole peppers and sauce-covered beans.
For residents like Connie Saldaña, finding these ingredients once meant a trip to a specialty market. Today, she goes to nearby chain stores to buy most of the ingredients to make authentic enchiladas, homemade Spanish rice and hot tamales.
“Most of the time Wal-Mart, and sometimes Food City, will have a lot of the Mexican food,” Saldaña said. “It’s just the way you put it together to give it the flavor that you want.”
Saldaña attains that perfect flavor with hot peppers, onions and meat, which she adds to the homemade refried beans she prepares for her Mexican husband of 26 years, Jesús.
“Take those and put in a tortilla and you’ve got lunch,” Saldaña said.
More and more, groceries are offering Hispanic foods to meet demands from customers — both immigrant cooks and Americans who like Hispanic cooking.
Rocky Tilson, assistant manager at Food Lion’s 915 N. Main Ave. store for 14 years, said the grocery chain began offering a special Hispanic foods section about eight years ago.
“That was the time when Food Lion created the whole Hispanic ‘set’ especially for Hispanics — an eight-foot gondola display we can carry all our dry grocery items on,” Tilson said. “It carries anything from Jumex nectars, La Costina beans, to hot sauces. We carry a wide variety of tortillas.”
Tilson said stores now carry cilantro and limes, along with fruits and vegetables used in Hispanic recipes. Stores routinely stock “anything from jalapeños, avocados to Roma tomatoes,” Tilson said.
When the growing season brings more Hispanics to Unicoi County, Tilson sees greater demand for specialty foods such as tripe, the lining of a cow’s stomach.
“It kind of looks like honeycomb,” Tilson said, adding that cooks use it to prepare a dish called menudo.
Tim Harris, director of space management for Food City stores, said in certain markets the grocery chain tailors parts of its stores to meet the needs of Hispanic customers. Food City’s nearest store is 4 ½ miles from Unicoi County on the old Erwin Highway.
Though the Hispanic population in Erwin remains constant, there still is a demand, Harris said. To meet this demand, Food City also offers Americanized Mexican and authentic Hispanic brands.
Vendors and specialty food companies, he said, help Food City buyers decide which brands go on the shelves because they know which products are selling in other areas.
Standard grocery items used in Hispanic cooking are also found in the frozen food section, though the majority of Hispanic food is packaged, Harris said. Many of the packaged brands include cola products such as Jarritos and a line of spices known as Vadia.
“There are particular brands that the Hispanic community is familiar with so they look for those brands,” Harris said.
Which foods are healthier? Because some canned foods will have a higher percentage of sodium, frozen alternatives are better options if the item cannot be purchased fresh, said Dr. Annette Florence, community, health and wellness educator for Mountain States Health Alliance. Beans, a Hispanic staple, are naturally low in fat and high in fiber, which helps prevent heart disease and cancer, Florence said.
Nopales, or cactus leaves, are one item that Saldaña cannot find fresh in the local supermarket, but can occasionally find in a specialty market.
“In Mexico they cook it fresh,” Saldaña said. “Take it and clean it, wash it good, fry it with onions and peppers and eat it with beans.”
Saldaña, who grew up in Elizabethton, said nopales tastes similar to chow chow, a pickled cabbage mixture which is a popular Southern condiment for beans.
At some grocery frozen-food sections Saldaña finds plastic-wrapped enchiladas with beans, but said those are not authentic.
“The real enchilada is usually made with potatoes,” Saldaña said. “Boil potatoes and wrap it up in a corn tortilla with a red pepper. That gives it the color, without the real hot flavor, and then it is fried.”
Saldaña learned to cook Mexican dishes like tamales and posole, a pre-Columbian soup, from an aunt on her husband’s side of the family. She enjoys shopping with her Mexican sister-in-law, Augustina. While pointing out favorite food items during a recent trip to the store, Augustina Saldaña said she sometimes prepares American-style tacos for her children.
“The kids are used to eating it in school and they get a taste for it,” Connie Saldaña said. “They have hot dogs. They love pizza.”
The American influence on Hispanic shoppers is growing, said Food Lion’s Tilson, who has observed other changes in local shopping habits.
“When we originally started getting Hispanic clientele in you really noticed the special varieties [of food]…but as the years went by they trend toward the way we eat,” Tilson said.
“I notice non-Hispanics are buying their items as well, just as much as Hispanics are buying our items.”
