If you're like me, you've passed the turquoise-tinged building of the Vegetable Bin near the Rainier Beach light rail station countless times. The unmissable roof has long sloped sides evoking a building from somewhere on the other side of the world. There are a few advertisements for products on the windows and two empty display cases with "Vegetable Bin" and "Polynesian Deli" written across the top.
Those who visit this convenience store often seek more than convenience — they want a taste of home.
Tae Kim's uncle started the Vegetable Bin back in the '90s. The store sold only produce until a customer, a Samoan pastor, suggested adding Polynesian food. Kim's uncle traveled to Samoa with the pastor and learned to cook the cuisine so he could replicate it back home at the store. Photos of the trip are framed and hang on the back wall behind the deli counter.
Kim explained that back then, it was much harder to get these Polynesian staples, like huge quantities of canned corned beef and coconut milk, which can still be difficult to find at that scale.
These days, the Vegetable Bin menu is fairly simple: boiled and baked taro, boiled green banana, turkey tails, pork sausage, corned beef, lamb flaps, palusami (coconut cream and onion in steamed taro leaves), and Spam musubi.
The deli section sits in the back of the store. It has a couple of tables and chairs set up in front of the hot food counter.
During my visit, as I sat with my spread of dishes, two Samoan men sat at the table next to me. They opened their boxes of turkey tail, taro, and corned beef. From the store, they bought Hawaiian Sun sodas and canned corned beef. A little lost about how best to eat my own food, I struck up a conversation. They explained that you can eat the taro as a starch, like rice or bread, and mix the canned corned beef into the palusami.
It would be easy to walk in, glance at the dishes warming behind the glass counter, and wonder what all the fuss is about. Boiled banana doesn't exactly sound like the most interesting thing. And who knew that turkey tail was something anyone ate? (The answer to that can be traced back to Western influence.)
Yet the turkey tail is fatty and cooked in a teriyaki sauce that makes it pretty irresistible. I knew the least about the palusami. But I was pleasantly surprised by just how creamy and flavorful the coconut milk was inside the taro leaves. I learned that you eat the leaves, which, when cooked, soften like spinach. They have a floral fragrance to them and a mild nutty flavor, which pairs perfectly with the saltier coconut cream and onion mixture.
I also got a Spam musubi, which, as expected, I found satisfactory. There's nothing spectacular about how it was prepared, but that is the beauty of such a simple dish — it doesn't need much to be good.
Washington state has the third-largest Pacific Islander population in the U.S., according to the Washington State Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs. The Vegetable Bin caters to the community with its hot food counter and inventory of essentials, chips and other snacks from the South Pacific region, and frozen items like octopus and parrotfish.
The store has one aisle dedicated to canned foods like mackerel, Spam, and corned beef — not exactly "traditional" Polynesian food.
Canned foods were introduced to the Pacific Islands by U.S. and European colonizers in the late 19th century, according to ABC Pacific. These canned foods became prized possessions because of their long shelf life, their taste, and the fact that they were difficult to obtain. During the two world wars, these items were rationed to locals, making them a staple in their everyday diets.
As Islanders moved their diets away from traditional foods like taro, fruit, and fish and consumed more processed foods, their health decreased dramatically. In 2016, NPR reported that the Samoan islands had among the world's highest rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
The hot food section of the store used to be bigger, with a rotating menu including dishes like manapua (a steamed bun full of meat), octopus in coconut, and whole fried fish. But Kim says that due to a slowdown in customers, the shop narrowed its menu to just the favorites. He suspects that part of it is due to people from the community trying to watch their health.
While the food wasn't something I would find myself craving on any given day, I can understand why the Vegetable Bin is important to so many people. Eating classic dishes like turkey tail and taro may not conjure any memories or feelings for me, but it does for the Polynesian customers who are looking for the taste of something familiar.
Anyone who has traveled or lived somewhere else can understand the feeling. The things that we took for granted become some of the things that we miss most when we can't have them. It's not the best-looking or even necessarily the best-tasting food that we miss — it's the food our parents made for us that becomes synonymous with home.
That's the magic of what the Vegetable Bin offers.
This article is published under a Seattle Human Services Department grant, “Resilience Amidst Hate,” in response to anti-Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander violence.
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