In an issue of The New Yorker last fall, Calvin Trillin wrote about “Chowhounds,” people who are almost obsessively devoted to searching out food of all kinds. These are people so consumed with comestibles, they’ve got their own Web site, at www.chowhound.com. As the authors of the site explain, Chowhounds are not foodies: “Foodies eat where they’re told; they eagerly follow trends and rarely go where Zagat hasn’t gone before. Chowhounds, on the other hand, blaze trails, combing gleefully through neighborhoods for hidden culinary treasure.”

It’s easy to be a Chowhound if you live in New York or San Francisco, cities with so many subcultures, ethnic and otherwise, that the opportunity for culinary finds may well be endless. It’s a lot harder if you live in Nashville, though it’s getting better all the time, thanks in part to one of the fastest growing immigrant populations in the country. That means some new, undiscovered dish waits somewhere, whether it’s a fried pie in North Nashville or a heaping platter of Ethiopian beef stew on Murfreesboro Road.

Yet when it comes to ethnic eateries in this town, it’s easy to tap out. If you’re a devotee of such food, chances are that you’ve already sampled the pupusas at Las Americas or the phenomenal Vietnamese po’boys at Kien Giang. A local Chowhound may have a better time finding something new by searching out Nashville’s ethnic groceries, which appear to be growing at a rate comparable to the city’s ethnic restaurants. What’s more, they offer things not to be found at any sit-down, full-service establishment.

For instance, if you’re searching for sweet pan masala, the chewable Indian treat in which betel nut, coconut and a variety of sweet and pungent spices are folded up inside a giant green pan leaf, you’ve got to find your way to one of two retail stores: Suraj Imports, next to Taste of India on Church Street, or Apna Bazaar, the city’s newest Indian grocery store, located on Nolensville Road. Likewise, Lanexang market on Thompson Lane, which caters to the city’s sizable Laotian population, is one of the few places to find Lao and Thai sweets such as khanom chan, freshly made and delivered each weekend.

One of the city’s newest and best ethnic groceries, the Global Food Market on Charlotte Avenue just past the White Bridge intersection, has found its own niche as well, offering an impressive variety of groceries inside an immaculate, modestly sized store. Though owners Nadir Lakel and Abdenour Benabdeloued carry a variety of Middle Eastern products, they have two specialties that make their store worth a visit. One is a selection of products from the Balkans, mostly Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Both owners are originally from Algeria, but Benabdeloued’s wife Edina is from the Bosnian town of Bosanski Brod, and the men realized that they could help fill a niche currently being unserved in town. Prior to the store’s opening in April, Nashville’s Balkan immigrants—who’ve shown up in increasing numbers in the wake of so much bloodshed in their homeland—had to travel to Bowling Green, Ky., to find their native products.

Those products include ajvar, a spicy eggplant spread; a curious selection of soup mixes; herbal tea mixtures that appear to be unique to that part of the world; whole smoked herring and whitefish; and quite a few sweets as well. There are several different brands of Croatian and Bosnian chocolate bars for sale, and though the Balkans may not be known for their cocoa production, it’s extraordinarily good—dark, sweet and rich. Also for sale is a confection known as Sarajevo Delight, which consists of walnuts packed in a heavy syrup.

Not to be confused with a similarly named store on Church Street, the Global Food Market is also noteworthy because it’s one of the few places that specializes in halal meat—animal products that have been specially blessed and slaughtered for consumption by Muslims. In the wake of so many concerns about bacteriological contamination of meat, halal is becoming increasingly popular in the States among non-Muslims, who like the idea that the animals are handled with more care and compassion than in the mainstream meat-packing industry. (Slaughtering knives are kept extremely sharp, to ensure that the animal is killed with a minimum of pain, and each animal is blessed before it is killed.)

Lakel and Benabdeloued’s explanation of their own butchering operation bears out the main appeal of halal meat for non-Muslims: its freshness. To purchase their goats and lambs, the owners travel to Columbia, Tenn., where they purchase the livestock directly from local farmers. (Beef currently isn’t available at the store, though it may be in the future.) They then travel to a USDA-approved slaughterhouse in Columbia, where Benabdeloued personally butchers each animal according to Islamic law. When the cuts of meat reach the store, they’re placed in a 38-degree cooler for 24 hours to allow the blood to drain out. This, Lakel explains, makes for a superior product.

Though they don’t slaughter or prepare their own chickens, the owners purchase poultry from a halal farm in Atlanta, and Lakel says it’s among the best he’s ever tasted. For anyone who knows anything about the horrifying poultry industry in America, the availability of fresh, safely handled chicken meat will come as welcome news. It was only a few weeks ago that Global Food Market started carrying halal meat, but since then, business has picked up considerably. “We get the meat in on Thursday,” Lakel says, “and we run out of it on Sunday.”

Global Food Market is surely the only place in town to find fresh merguez, an unusually flavorful, mildly spicy lamb sausage prepared in-house by the owners. And the store is one of two places where local diners can find khobz, an enormous Iraqi flat bread baked by local immigrants. (The owners get the bread from International Food Mart, another fine ethnic establishment on Thompson Lane.) Because the store has only recently opened, Lakel explains that he’s continuing to get new products. But already the selection—which includes pickled turnips, preserved lemons and the spicy North African red pepper paste known as harissa—is a treat for anyone with a serious interest in food. Lakel himself certainly falls in that category: By day, he runs the market, and by night, he works as the assistant maître d’ at the Wild Boar.

In addition to all the edible products at Global Food Market—some of which feature helpful descriptions taped to the shelves—there’s a fascinating array of other stuff as well. Couscous steamers, imported from the Middle East, allow home chefs to cook the dish the proper way, rather than resorting to the instant stuff that lines supermarket shelves. There are hookahs and kaftans for sale, also from the Middle East, along with hand-cranked coffee grinders and Balkan magazines and cassettes. Such an array of products is true to the inviting spirit that customers will encounter upon walking through the door. As Lakel explains, though the city’s Muslim population has quickly found its way to his store, “All people are welcome here.” And if they’re Chowhound-ish in the least, they will find much to their liking.

Located at 5625-B Charlotte Ave., Global Food Market is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, except on Friday, when the store closes from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Phone: 352-6234.

Looking east

Situated in a low-traffic zone in North Nashville’s Germantown neighborhood, Wang’s Enterprises may be one of the city’s least-known ethnic groceries, but it’s also one of the oldest. This sizable warehouse, in business for 18 years, supplies most of the Chinese restaurants in town. And as proprietor Terry Wang explains, even after nearly two decades, 95 percent of his customers are Chinese, hailing from Taiwan (his own homeland), the mainland and Hong Kong.

The selection here is truly remarkable, offering both fresh produce and all kinds of packaged edibles: canned juices and beverages (some of which will be startlingly unfamiliar), fried gluten, roasted eel, pickled cucumbers, jackfruit chips, ginger candies, Malaysian curry power and sushi ginger, along with such basics as rice noodles and some 30 varieties of soy sauce. Because Wang’s Enterprises supplies so many restaurants, it’s a great place to find Asian cookware, including woks, bamboo steamers, cutting boards and rice cookers. Other products include incense, stunning gold-leafed joss paper (used for ritual burning in some Eastern cultures), mah-jongg sets, herbal supplements and dried ginseng.

After looking around Wang’s Enterprises, you may wonder why all the Chinese restaurants in town serve the same fare, which always seems to have been tamed, simplified and oversweetened to satisfy American palates (never mind the fact that it’s so greasy). But ask Wang, and he’ll reveal what may be the only place in town to find authentic Chinese fare. That alone is worth a trip to his store.

Wang’s Enterprises is located at 1309 Third Ave. N. Phone: 256-7553.