A Hunger for Connection: Asian markets offer many types of sustenance

The husband-and-wife team of Joey and Mary Kris Palmer have owned the Filipino Market LLC on South Campbell Avenue since late 2020.

Joey, who can’t stop polishing surfaces long enough to talk, is proud of the spick-and-span store with its tidy rows of products, refrigerated produce and freezers full of meat and fish, including hard-to-find items like pork belly, beef intestine and moonfish.

The store also ships “balikbayan” boxes back to the Philippines for customers. In the Tagalog language, the word translates to back home. Those who left their country to live and work in the United States go home, symbolically, through boxes of clothes, foods and supplies they send to family. Joey reckons he ships 150 boxes most months.

The store is more than a place to buy food, Joey said; it’s a place to feel connected.

The first customer on a recent morning was Jonalyn Macugay, a nurse at CoxHealth – one of many who have relocated from the Philippines to help with the local nursing shortage. Joey calls her sissy.

“Everyone who comes in here is my sissy or my brother,” he said.

Macugay moved to the U.S. in 2019 and is a regular shopper at the Filipino Market.

“My tongue is still looking for the Filipino taste,” she said. “I am absolutely looking for this food.”

When asked what her must-have item is, Macugay points to a bottle labeled “boneless bagoong tirong”: fish sauce.

“In my place in the Philippines, all of our meals, all of our food comes with it. It’s very good,” she said.

The Palmers have stocked more than a dozen varieties of fish sauce to suit the disparate tastes of a country made up of 7,000 islands.

The Palmers are serious about building community.

“We don’t pride ourselves on profit; we pride ourselves on people,” Joey said.

They regularly host meet-and-greets to bring members of the Filipino community together. The events are potluck style, allowing Americans and Filipinos to sample each other’s dishes as they get to know each other.

Mary Kris said people who move to Springfield can get lonely.

“They tell us they don’t know anybody here and they don’t have family here,” she said. “They tend to either move to another town, or some of them, they go home.”

The Palmers say they’re trying to change that.

Economic vitality
The Palmers are not alone in trying to help professionals find contentment in Springfield. The city established its Economic Vitality department in 2021, and the office aims to attract both businesses and workers to the Queen City, whose metro workforce has grown more than 3% in the last eight years.

Statistics show 67% of workers who come from Asia hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 43% of white people, according to 2021 figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Another 13% of Asian workers have some college experience.

The BLS notes the Asian population includes the highest percentage of management, professional and related occupations, at 58%, compared with 43% for white workers.

Census figures from July 2022 show 2% of Springfield’s population identifies as Asian – up from 1.36% in the 2000 census. The figure does not include people who identify as more than one race.

The Pew Research Center reports Asian Americans have the fastest population growth rate among all U.S. ethnic groups, growing by 81% in the two decades starting with 2000. By 2060, the U.S. Asian population is expected to more than triple its 2000 level.

It seems Asian groceries play a more pivotal role than providing what might look like a stunning array of ramen to those who grew up thinking 10-cent Maruchan packets were the extent of it. Familiar flavors may be a key factor in keeping a largely educated workforce from going back home.

Small stores do well
As Suzan Johnston minded her son-in-law’s shop, Asia Food & Gift Market on South Glenstone Avenue, she reflected on the store’s customers.

“We have our local Asian community, and then some of the younger people love shopping here,” she said.

As she spoke, four or five teens roamed the aisles, scrutinizing snacks and candy.

Johnston said her son-in-law, Sangeyeal Lee, was on vacation in Australia, the Philippines and South Korea. Though she was not in a position to share financials, she noted he was doing quite well, supplying several restaurants in town.

Another shopper was Carmelita Darnold, who moved from the Philippines 10 years ago and works at a pharmacy.

Darnold was shopping for dinner items, and she was also planning to make a special dish for a party – pancit, which is a dish of stir-fried rice noodles, pork and vegetables.

Just down the street is Bombay Bazaar. In addition to grocery items, the store offers prepared food that owner Nirav Patel described as Indian street food, like dosas and samosas.

Patel said many professionals from the community come in on Thursday when the produce is newly delivered.

Eustace and Ingrid D’Souza came in a day early. Eustace is a software engineer at Prime Inc. and Ingrid a homemaker, and they moved to Springfield from Mumbai 25 years ago. Eustace said the city didn’t have an Indian store for many of those years.

“We used to go to Kansas City or we drove to Arkansas,” Ingrid said, adding they went about every three months and stocked up on all essentials.

At Bombay Bazaar, shopping can be fun again. The D’Souzas showed off their basket, half-filled with brightly packaged snacks.

Ingrid said these days, Indian foods can be found at lots of other stores, such as Costco.

“They can’t have everything,” Eustace said. “This has the other 90%, especially fresh vegetables – the Indian vegetables.”

Foodie appeal
Grand View Research reports the global ethnic food market is expected to expand by 8.7% from 2022 to 2028. Part of the reason is a growing interest in world cuisines, with Chinese and Japanese food leading the rise in demand. Additionally, the millennial population has an adventurous palate, the report states, and looks for exotic experiences in new ingredients and flavors.

Mark Grimes is now a proofreader at FORVIS LLP, but before that he was a Missouri State University instructor who taught English to Chinese students online. For three months in October 2020, he lived and taught face to face in China.

Grimes likes to shop at Asian groceries in town and said a favorite item is fish balls.

“They’re so good,” he said. “They’re just little salty white balls of fish you can use in lots of different ways. I like to throw them in a stir fry.”

Grimes has been fascinated by Asian food, languages and culture since taking courses in Korean at MSU. While in China, he said he sampled all of the unusual foods he could find, including ingredients like pig stomach and duck blood.

“I tried it and I loved some of it, honestly,” he said.

Insurance adjuster Annabelle Schultz is also an adventurous eater. While shopping at Asian World Market LLC, she noted she plans to visit the continent for the first time this year.

In her basket were long-stemmed seafood mushrooms, a popular variety throughout Asia. Schultz likes them in salads.

Asian World Market owner Tammy Fallen said she came to the U.S. at age 5 as a Cambodian refugee. Many of her customers hail from other countries, like Fallen, but many, like Schultz, are foodies.

“Sometimes people don’t realize all the ingredients that we have, so they need to come out and take a look,” she said.

For those who have never shopped for Asian foods, Fallen said she is happy to show them around and to share what she knows about ingredients and dishes.

And for those who do know Asian foods, Fallen knows that sometimes it just takes a taste to carry them back to their earliest memories.

“Food always brings you back home,” she said.