I like markets

I love markets.  One of the things my true love and I always try to find time for when we travel is visiting markets, although on the face of it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Except for those times when we stay in Paris, we don’t have access to cooking equipment and you wouldn’t think that gazing at piles of fruit or semi-butchered meats would be all that interesting, but it is.

So on our first day in Rome, we just wanted to walk around and get a sense of the city but part of that wandering needed to take in the Campo di’ Fiori, the largest of Rome’s open air markets (according to our guidebook).  There are some merchants that obviously cater to tourists, like the ones who run this stand of dried pasta.  I can’t imagine anyone actually living in Rome would want a package of multi-colored pasta in the shape of the Colosseum, but these guys sure had a lot of it.

On the other hand, there were several produce dealers who clearly were selling to Roman customers and this is where things get really interesting, because you see things you’ve never seen before.  One merchant had the puntarelle shown in the feature picture.  This is a kind of lettuce that was as remarkable for it’s tentacular and tubular shape as well as it’s €15/kg ($7.35/lb) price tag.  Now while $7/lb for lettuce might seem absurd, there could be two mitigating factors.  One was that we may have seen something even more outrageous.

Consider these asparagus.  At the time, I didn’t notice the price, but as I was processing our vacation photos, though, I saw what sure looks like €30/kg, or $14.67/lb. Not only the world’s skinniest asparagus, but it’s most expensive.

The other mitigating factor was that we ran into puntarelle a couple of nights later at a restaurant.  Dressed only in extra virgin olive oil and a couple of minced anchovies, it was as delicious an appetizer as any we had during our vacation. I keep being amazed at how many good dishes we had that required no cooking.

Most of the merchants were selling either packaged food for tourists or fresh food for Romans, with a couple at the west end selling things like second hand clothes, tourist trinkets, and handbags.  Strangely, the street musician entertaining people just outside the market was a Jamaican chanting mid-1980s reggae dancehall over a karaoke box.  OK.

The next day, we intended to visit either the Forum or the Colosseum, but we got waylaid by Trajan’s Markets .  This is still a more or less active archaeological site that stretches to the north of the Forum and Capitol Hill.  The entire space includes the Forum of Augustus, the Forum of Peace and a couple of other spaces but it is the markets of Trajan that attracted our attention.  The buildings are awe-inspiring but this is also the 2,000 year old ancestor of the Campo di’ Fiori.

The semi-circular structure housed the public markets of Rome in the 1st and 2nd century CE.  Food merchants occupied the ground floor, with artisans on the 1st and and 2nd floors and the forum stretching out in front of the semi-circular building used for merchandise handling and a general public space.

It takes a little imagination, but it is not impossible to imagine this space buzzing with activity as wheat is being carted to and fro, customers and merchants are arguing over the price of cloth, and vendors hawking their oranges or leather goods, not unlike the way the merchants at Campo di’ Fiori or Philadelphia’s own Italian Market do these days.  Most of the remnants of ancient Rome speak to the glory and power of that great empire, but Trajan’s Markets are a tribute to the way people lived 2,000 years ago. Just walking through the ancient vendor stalls was nothing short of amazing for us.

We didn’t get to the Mercato dei Fiori or the Mercato Andrea Doria, the two largest enclosed markets in Rome – those will have to wait for our next visit.  We did encounter a couple of street markets like this one.  There is no shortage of shops selling sausages, cheeses, or other food stuffs that can take your breath away, like these on the left.

I almost feel guilty for say
ing this, but there are times when I could spend as much time gazing at a pile of sausages, bacon, and cheeses as I could a Raphael ceiling.  On the other hand, Raphael doesn’t smell nearly as enticing.