> Myself, I'm mainly thinking about spices.
I like buying the large McCormick containers from Amazon (example). You can probably find some of the spices cheaper at places like Sams or Costco, but you can't beat the selection and convenience of online. And simply by not buying the small salt shaker sized containers, you're already saving a bundle. I have an entire kitchen cabinet devoted to those McCormack containers.
I've used Amazon Fresh a couple of times. Their beef, poultry, fish options are ridiculously expensive (I've yet to find anywhere online that has fresh protein at reasonable prices) but a lot of the other offerings are comparable in price to what you'll find in your local grocery store. Selection is lacking though. I was hoping they'd step up their game after the acquisition, but it's not like you can order the entire selection of what's available at your local brick and mortar Whole Foods .
> obviously not raw fish and stuff
We truly live in a magical time. Check out Catalina Offshore. They ship frozen sushi grade fish. If you have a good quality freezer that doesn't freezer burn your food, I recommend stocking up to qualify for the free shipping on orders over $300, which makes a difference, because they ship everything overnight express in a cooler pack, which ain't cheap.
You can absolutely find cheaper fresh fish at your local brick and mortar, but your local sushi restaurant sources their product in the same frozen form at only slightly lower wholesale prices. Proton Freezers aren't cheap. And if you've ever rolled your own sushi, you know that one pound of fish makes a ridiculous amount of rolls. That $30 slab of tuna would easily be $120 worth of tuna rolls at your local sushi spot.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001PQMJIY/ref=twister_B00CTK1HKG?_encoding=UTF8&th=1 I go through that about once a month lol
>There's nothing preventing someone from Kansas to spending time in New York and learning the process, that kind of learning process can happen and often does for many chefs.
But there's nor formal training for how to make a lot of regional foods. It's very informal. And if you're going to call something a bagel, you should know how to make it well. Otherwise call it a Kansas City bread doughnut.
I'll relate another Aggieville story to illustrate. I'm from Long Island. There are literally pizza joints on almost every corner in the business districts here. I suspect there's at least one on each block on average. Every one has three things either on the counter or on each table. Cheese, hot pepper, and granulated garlic. powder. Not fine garlic powder, and not dried diced garlic. It's granulated garlic powder.
There's a pizza place in Aggieville called AJ's NY Pizzeria, and they have great marketing about how their pizza is based on a brooklyn pizeria. But no garlic anywhere in their store. And if you ask, you'll get minced garlic in oil.
Again, it's the nuances that make regional foods experiences what they are, and it's incredibly hard to duplicate when you're not from the region.
The market's going to support the bad interpretations because they don't know any better. And, in this case, it's arguably good pizza. I've had worse in NY. But there are many places in NYC, Brooklyn and Long Island that would blow them away.