Southwestern Pennsylvania is a prime example of the American melting pot. Varied traditions have blended together to create a distinct culture — and we have the food to show for it.
Yet many people, with busy lives and seeking convenience, stick with what they know when they go food shopping. It’s easy to fall into a rut of cooking the same meals over and over again.
Enter your local specialty grocery store. Some are dedicated to specific ethnic cuisines, some to a particular genre of foodstuffs, but all are an eye-opening experience.
Maybe you’re looking for some new, higher quality ingredients to upgrade the dishes you grew up eating, or maybe you’re looking to try something completely new. Either way, the Pittsburgh area has a shop for you. Stores devoted to cuisines including Korean, Mexican, Greek, Italian and Indian have popped up and established themselves, selling authentic ingredients at affordable prices.
Whether they’ve been around for decades or are just starting out, the owners are looking to create a new food community right here.
If you want to spend a whole day exploring small specialty food shops, Pittsburgh’s Strip District is the place to go. That’s where you’ll find Salonika Imports, which has provided the region with Mediterranean foods and ingredients for decades.
“Our focus is predominantly Mediterranean. Greek, I would say, is our number one,” said Chris Balouris, who has owned Salonika Imports since 2006.
That makes sense — after all, the store is named after the Greek city of Thessaloniki.
Balouris himself is of Greek heritage, so he’s knowledgeable about the products that Salonika — which sells both retail and wholesale — provides to Pittsburgh.
“Olive oil, olives, Greek cheeses, Greek yogurt, those are definitely our top sellers and also some of our favorites,” he said. “That’s a key focus of the Mediterranean diet, a lot of which is based on Greek cuisine.”
The Mediterranean diet has been embraced in recent years for its health benefits. Focusing on the food traditions and ingredients of countries including Greece, Italy and Spain, the diet includes plenty of fresh produce, beans, fish and healthy fats, along with fresh herbs and aromatics. Balouris said the diet’s popularity has brought new customers to the store.
But in addition, Balouris loves Greek comfort foods, including spanakopita (a spinach pie in filo dough), pastitsio (which he calls “Greek lasagna”) and moussaka (a similar recipe that includes eggplant).
The store sells a variety of products, from roasted red peppers to stuffed grape leaves to tahini to Greek pastries like baklava.
He said that when he bought the business, his customers were primarily Greek regulars, but his base has expanded to eaters from all backgrounds. “We find a lot of people are just interested and curious,” he said.
Salonika Imports: 3509 Smallman St., Strip District, 800-7942256, salonika.net
Filomena Merante and her sister Julie took over Groceria Merante in Oakland from their parents, continuing a tradition of feeding the neighborhood that’s been going for nearly 50 years. “And now my children work here, and my sister and I are still here,” Filomena Merante said.
When the store opened, it mostly attracted the heavily Italian community of the neighborhood, but Merante said that the college students who flood Oakland have also embraced the store. “The kids come from all backgrounds,” she said. “But almost everybody loves Italian food, and it’s one of the easiest things to cook.”
The store features a deli with local and imported meats and cheeses, plenty of fresh produce, delicious coffee and desserts, and a variety of pasta, oils, vinegars and herbs.
Merante is particularly fond of their mortadella. “I live on mortadella every day,” she said.
She’s also a fan of fresh herbs, especially oregano, and the staple base of any recipe — oil and garlic. “They buy any of the vegetables and say, ‘how do you cook that? How do you saute that?’ Oil and garlic, that’s it, you’re done.”
From the time where Italian construction workers were feeding families of five or seven kids on a budget, to the present when college kids are still eating on a budget, Merante has maintained its essential Italianness.
“We try to pass on the traditions and a lot of ways of cooking or recipes, and now just watching each generation,” Merante said. “It’s a beautiful thing to watch.”
Groceria Merante: 3454 Bates St., Oakland, 412-683-3454, groceriamerante.com
Sambok Korean Groceries
Another Strip District staple, Sambok has been around for nearly 40 years, said store supervisor Jeffrey Kang. Not only can you find Korean food staples, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables, there’s also a Korean street food stall outside the store for prepared foods, including their much-praised mung bean pancakes.
“We sell a lot of Asian products,” Kang said. “Ramen, fresh vegetables, Asian pears, frozen foods. It’s mostly Korean.”
Kang himself is Korean and grew up in the food culture, so most of the products are familiar to him. Asked to name his favorite foods sold at Sambok, Kang had an immediate and enthusiastic answer:
“Buldak ramen,” he said, referring to a South Korean brand of instant noodles called Samyang buldak ramen. The brand is famous around the world, even going viral on social media, for the supercharged spice found in their “fire noodles.”
“I love it,” he said. “Can’t get enough of it. I can’t eat too much, but when I do it’s amazing.”
As far as recipes that you can pull together with ingredients in the small-but-comprehensive store, Kang said that Tteokguk is a favorite. It’s a hearty and comforting soup made of bone broth and rice cakes that is frequently eaten at Korean New Year.
Sambok Korean Groceries: 1735 Penn Ave, Strip District, 412-261-9377
The iconic Pennsylvania Macaroni Co. has been open for more than 120 years, first in Sharpsburg and now at its always-bustling location in the Strip District. Current owner Bill Sunseri represents the third generation of his family to run the business.
“Preserving it for the fourth generation, which will probably be my son,” Sunseri said.
The store sells both Italian and American ingredients and foods, from meats and cheeses to oils and vinegars to sauces and — of course — pastas. They also sell to restaurants. The store stocks more than 5,000 specialty products.
What are Sunseri’s favorites? “Olive oil. Soppressata, prosciutto, and pasta. Tomatoes. I mean, I could go on forever.”
Sunseri’s family is Sicilian and his wife is Calabrese, so together they have a strong Italian food tradition that includes traditions like the Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes and other classic food-related hallmarks influenced by the southern part of Italy.
As for his favorite dish from his family’s food tradition — and their goods — he loves when his wife makes linguine with white clam sauce. “It’s great for Lent. She makes the best one.”
Sunseri said that his grandfather and his two great-uncles originally started the business to cater to the Italian immigrants who were flocking to Pittsburgh and settling in the Hill District at the time, as well as locals who began to love Italian food as well.
When they started catering to the service industry in the 1950s, there were only about 25 pizzerias in the city. “You used to be able to read them all in one column in the Yellow Pages.”
Pennsylvania Macaroni Co.: 2010-2012 Penn Ave., Strip District, 412-227-1982, pennmac.com