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The bazaar that is Manhattan’s Chinatown proffers live birds, quail eggs, fresh tofu, dried beef snacks, delicacies such as bird’s nests and shark fins, and staples like oyster sauce and Kadoya sesame oil. Chinatown’s meat markets sell lapchang sausages and the Smithfield hams used in recipes as a substitute for Yunnan hams, as well as fresh white “Peking” ducks from Long Island. Fresh fish-whole prawns, salmon filets, lobsters-practically spills onto the sidewalks from Chinatown’s numerous fish stands.

Lotus root, water chestnuts, winter melons, tamarind pods, pale green and bumpy bitter melons, pomelos that look like swollen grapefruits-there seems no end to the variety of greens, gourds, tubers, herbs, and fruits that fill the racks and stalls of New York’s Asian markets.

Much of the Asian produce in New York’s markets and restaurants is grown on farms on Long Island and in New Jersey. Long Island farmers Fred and Karen Lee grow Asian vegetables on Sang Lee Farm, started by Mr. Lee’s father and uncles in 1947-vegetables including bok choi, nyu choi sum (flowering cabbage with small yellow flowers), guy lon (Chinese broccoli), guy choi (Chinese mustard greens), and Korean moo (white radish). Davie C.Y. Yen, of Hydro Garden Farm in Yaphank, New York, offers his own kimchi at his stand at the Union Square Greenmarket, along with baby bok choi, wasabi greens, soy beans, and edible Asian lilies. He says “Ten years ago, no one was eating tai choi” (a small, dark leafy green similar to mustard greens with a sharp taste), so he didn’t sell it. His new estimate: “Now Americans across the country eat 5,000 pounds of tai choi a day… maybe more!”