Showing posts with label Market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Market. Show all posts

Friday, February 6, 2015

Burmese Days 12: Sensory Overload at Thiri Mingalar Market

If you like wholesale produce markets, they do not get much bigger than the Thiri Mingalar market in west Rangon, near the Hlaing River and west of Inya Lake and Yangon University. This is another place off the normal tourist route, but more and more foreigners are gradually showing up, and the local merchants seem delighted to have curious visitors. The market is huge and consists of three rows of parallel steel sheds (the aerial photograph is from ESRI® maps and data).
I never quite figured out the geography, but the first area my friends and I explored was the fruit area. Wow, nice produce, fresh from the farms.
Watermelons go flying. Strong guys to do this all day.
Bananas and plantains - more than I have ever seen in one place before.
Now for the good smelly stuff: the dried fish and shrimp. The shrimp are used as a flavoring agent in Burmese cuisine.
These tubs contain fermenting fish mash in the process of becoming fish sauce. Yum. Think of this when you buy a bottle of fish sauce in one of our sterile US supermarkets.
These carrots might be pretty good, as well.
If you are hungry, there is a big cafeteria on site. We were a bit dubious about the dish-washing facilities.
Betel nut chewing is a big business in Burma. The young ladies wrap betel leaf, areca nut, and slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) into a little package, which may also contain tobacco, cardamon, or other spice. Rural people and workers in certain industries, especially truck and bus drivers, chew the betel as a stimulant. It stains their teeth and lips red. When we lived in Rangoon in the 1950s, walls were stained red with spit-out betel juice up to a height of about 6 ft. Chewing betel has serious health effects, especially malignant tumors in the mouth area.
These are the delivery boys, who pedal amazingly heavy loads in bicycle sidecars. Selfie photos are the big thing now.
Some families tend small stores.
I cannot recall what these shredded white roots are, but they sell tons of it every day. And the guys check their phones whenever possible. 
The Thiri Mingalar market is an amazing tableau of colors, shapes, smells, and people for a photographer. It seems safe, and there are other foreign visitors present. Highly recommended! Next time, I will take a film camera and try black and white. Wear boots or high shoes because there is a lot of squishy stuff underfoot.

These are digital images from a Panasonic G3 camera with Olympus 9-18mm lens or a Fujifilm X-E1 camera, with most RAW files processed with PhotoNinja software.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

The Rialto Market, Venice, Italy

Long-term readers know I like public markets, and the Rialto Market in Venice, Italy, is a a good one. The market has been here for hundreds of years and is still active, but has lost most of the Medieval earthy character that must have assailed a visitor's nose during its pre-20th century history.
Map drawn with ESRI® ArcMap™ 10.0 software using the ESRI topographic basemap layer
The Rialto Market is easy to reach.  If you are staying in a hotel in the San Marco district, walk across the Rialto Bridge (Italian: Ponte di Rialto), which spans the Grand Canal.
The Rialto Bridge is a popular tourist site with a fantastic view of the activity below.  The present bridge, replacing an older wood span, is a single span built of stone.  It was designed by Antonio da Ponte and completed in 1591.  It is an unusual design with rows of shops under the portico.  The shops sell expensive tourist souvenirs.
You can also take a water taxi, depending on where your are staying, but most people walk. Even Ernest Hemingway described this walk in his 1950 novel, Across the River and into the Trees,
"Then you could climb the bridge and cross it and go down into the market. He liked the market best. It was the part of any town he always went to first." 
Excellent advice for the modern tourist.  A market tells you a lot about the people of a town and their habits.
Proceed a few blocks northwest and you reach Campo de la Pescaria, the market district.  On my recent trip, some drizzle was falling and the market was a bit subdued.  You can follow the National Geographic walking tour if you want a route map.
But the awnings were down and the merchants were selling vegetables and all forms of seafood.  I did not see the snail lady.  Time to scan some old negatives from previous visits. As Hemingway wrote,
"He loved the market. A great part of it was close-packed and crowded into several side streets, and it was so concentrated that it was difficult not to jostle people, unintentionally, and each time you stopped to look, to buy, or to admire, you formed an îlot de resistance against the flow of the morning attack of the purchasers."
There were plenty of marine organic materials whose origins I could not guess, but have no doubt that Venetian chefs can make them utterly delicious.  The swordfish steak would be fine, too. Back to Hemingway:
     "He took a short cut, and was at the fish-market.
     In the market, spread on the slippery stone floor, or in their baskets, or their rope-handled boxes, were the heavy, gray-green lobsters with their magenta overtones that presaged their death in boiling water. They have all been captured by treachery, the Colonel thought, and their claws are pegged.
     There were the small soles, and there were a few alba-core and bonito. These last, the Colonel thought, looked like boat-tailed bullets, dignified in death, and with the huge eye of the pelagic fish. 
     They were not made to be caught except for their voraciousness. The poor sole exists, in shallow water, to feed man. But these other roving bullets, in their great bands, live in blue water and travel through all oceans and all seas.
     A nickel for your thoughts now, he thought. Let’s see what else they have.
     There were many eels, alive and no longer confident in their eeldom. There were fine prawns that could make a scampi brochetto spitted and broiled on a rapier-like instrument that could be used as a Brooklyn icepick. There were medium sized shrimp, gray and opalescent, awaiting their turn, too, for the boiling water and their immortality, to have their shucked carcasses float out easily on an ebb tide on the Grand Canal.
     The speedy shrimp, the Colonel thought, with tentacles longer than the mustaches of that old Japanese admiral, comes here now to die for our benefit. Oh Christian shrimp, he thought, master of retreat, and with your wonderful intelligence service in those two light whips, why did they not teach you about nets and that lights are dangerous?"
The ancient streets and alleys in the Rialto District are interesting architecturally.  There are plenty of arches, tunnels, and narrow lanes.  It is less crowded than the more popular San Marco district.
Finally, here is the result of all this fantastic produce and meat.  Venice's restaurants are a bit expensive, but no more so than ones in Manhattan or Los Angeles, and a glass of house wine is only a Euro or two. I could live in Italy.....

For readers interested in other markets, please see the posts on:
1.  Egyptian Market, Istanbul
2.  Reading Terminal, Philadelphia
3.  Central Market, Athens
4.  Farmers' Market in rural Greece
5.  Asan Chowk market, Kathmandu

Across the River and into the Trees is an odd novel.  It is about a crusty old U.S. Army officer in love with a young Venetian Contessa.  As summarized in Wikipedia, "Tennessee Williams, in The New York Times, wrote: "I could not go to Venice, now, without hearing the haunted cadences of Hemingway's new novel. It is the saddest novel in the world about the saddest city, and when I say I think it is the best and most honest work that Hemingway has done, you may think me crazy. It will probably be a popular book. The critics may treat it pretty roughly. But its hauntingly tired cadences are the direct speech of a man's heart who is speaking that directly for the first time, and that makes it, for me, the finest thing Hemingway has done.""  I do not agree - it is somewhat slow going, but do read it before your next trip for the flavor of post-war Venice.

Photographs taken with a Nexus 4 phone (sorry, no real camera this trip), with adjustments in ACDSee Pro software.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Come to the Supermarket (in Old Kathmandu)

Well, maybe Cole Porter did not write exactly these words in Aladdin (see the full lyrics below), but he was probably thinking of a place like the Asan Chowk market in Kathmandu. According to Wikipedia, "a chowk (Urdu: چوک) is a Town square, an open area commonly found in the heart of a traditional town used for community gatherings, market square, or simply traffic intersection."
The Asan is a short walk from the Thamel tourist area of town, but it can be an adventure getting there and back. The first thing that struck me was the crowds. Late afternoon, the streets were mobbed! Where are all these people going? It's such a contrast to many American cities, which often are deserted downtown after 5 pm. In the second photograph, you can see the fabrics hanging along the buildings. This is one of the fabric areas that I mentioned in the previous Nepal article.
Once you reach the Chowk, it's as crowded as the surrounding streets. Watch your feet or you'll step in a vendor's merchandise or in a hole in the sidewalk.
This is the famous salt from northern Nepal and Tibet. For hundreds of years, workers mined the salt in Tibet and traders/merchants carried it south to India (sometimes on goat back). In return, traders brought rice and other products north through the Himalaya. Towns like Lo Manthang and Kagbeni became prosperous salt centers. This commerce finally diminished in the mid-20th century when factory-manufactured salt containing iodine became readily available in India. But the traditional salt is said to bestow medicinal properties. Who knows about that, but it tastes good in cooking. The black salt has a strong H2S aroma when you grind it up, the pink much less so.
Do you want spices? Here you can find them, anything your cuisine needs.
Nuts and beans? Anything you want.
Roots, garlic, ginger, and ginseng? This is the place.
Fruits? Yes, indeed.
Many of the vendors bring their wares to the Chowk on sturdy bicycles. I think most of them are from India and have only one gear. They also have rod-operated brakes rather than cable, like most modern western bikes.
Do you need some incense, bells, or other religious supplies? Come to the Asan Chowk.
These leaves are woven into little boats. Hindu pilgrims place food offerings in the leaves and float them down the Basmati River, which runs through town some distance from here.
These vivid powders are also used in Hindu activities.
Need a chicken or a mallard to go with those vegetables and spices? Plenty from which to choose.
And plenty of paper goods on which to serve your feast.
How about a kite or kite string? This fellow will help you.
Finally, how about some elegant flip-flops for your party? Cole Porter never anticipated these....

COME TO THE SUPERMARKET (IN OLD PEKIN)

From Aladdin, music and lyrics by Cole Porter. Aladdin was originally broadcast by CBS as the "Du Pont Show Of The Month" on February 21, 1958. First LP release: February 10, 1958.

If you want a fancy fan
Or a turkey born in Turkey-stan
Or a slave that's awf'lly African
Or a Teapot early Ming,
Come to the supermarket in old Peking.

If you want to buy a kite
Or a pup to keep you up at night
Or a dwarf who used to know Snow White
Or a frog who loves to sing,
Come to the supermarket in old Peking.

They have: sunflow'r cakes, moonbeam cakes,
Gizzard cakes, lizard cakes,
Pickled eels, pickle snakes,
Fit for any king,

If you want a bust of jade
Or an egg that's more or less decayed
Or in case you care to meet a maid
For a nice but naughty fling,

Come to the supermarket,
If you come on an ostrich, you can park it,
So come to the supermarket
And see Pe-
King.

If you want a gong to beat
Or a rickshaw with a sassy seat
Or a painting slightly indiscreet
That is simply riveting,
Come to the supermarket and see Peking.

Well, If you want some calico
Or a gentle water buffalo
Glow worm guaranteed to glow
Or a cloak inclined to cling,
Come to the supermarket in old Peking.

They have bird's-nest soup, seaweed soup,
Noodle soup, poodle soup,
Talking crows with the croup,
Almost anything.

If you want to buy a saw
Or a fish delicious when it's raw
Or a pill to kill your moth'r-in-law
Or a bee without a sting,

Come to the supermarket,
If you come on a turtle, you can park it,
So come to the supermarket
If you come on a goose, you can park it,
So come to the supermarket
And see
Pe-
King!


(I have a 1960 recording on LP from the London Coliseum performance - brilliant.)