This
morning, while out shopping for some stuff, we passed by the Market in
La Marsa. It’s an indoor market where you can buy fruits,
vegetables, meat, chicken, honey, herbs, and a bunch of other
stuff.
vegetables, meat, chicken, honey, herbs, and a bunch of other stuff.
You can even find some pets sometimes like squirrels, hamsters, birds…etc.
I loved how all the different fruits, with their rich and beautiful colours looked together side by side. It was like a carnival of colours painting an amazing portrait.
Everything looked so fresh, juicy and very delicious.
Something else I really loved is this old man who came to the market dressed in his full traditional Tunisian wear (Jebba, Chechiyya and all).
They pulled up a chair for him in the middle of the market and there he sat just telling the different guys from the different shops what he needed as they went and got it for him.
img src=”http://photos25.flickr.com/35630270_3e77bb46bd_m.jpg” alt=”Old Man in Market” align=”right” border=”0″ height=”240″ hspace=”5″ width=”180″>It’s so nice to see how this old man actually still has fun going to the market, how he wears his best clothes when he goes there, how
the people there treat him with all respect and friendliness.
This was how Tunisia was everywhere in the days of our parents and grand parents.
Now it’s just a sweet memory that we love seeing every now and then through an old person who doesn’t want to let go of the beauty of those days.
These days we’re all stressed, we’re all running out of time, we all can’t afford to go to the market and deal with people in a friendly way, we just need to get in and out of some mall where there is the least personal interaction possible.
I remember the days when I was a kid and I used to go to the market in Bizerta with my grandfather. It wasn’t just about getting fish, meat, vegetables, fruits or anything else for the house, It was a lot more than that, It was also about the social side of it, a market is a place where you’d see and meet people and friends and connect with them.
Plus, you never find the kind of stuff there is in a market in any mall or shopping center. It’s just not the same quality.
I personally am going to try to get down to a market from now on whenever I need anything.
I want markets to exist forever in Tunisia, and that they don’t get replaced by malls. I hope future generations get to enjoy markets just like we and the generations before us did.
I love these sentimental comments. The only bad thing about tunisian markets is you dont get to touch the fruit to take the pices you want like in america. They yell at you and insist on giving you the fruit usually leaving some bad ones in the bunch. Same thing in France. Keep up your blog it has inspired me to write one though i can never match this content.
Thanks for the nice comment 🙂
As for not getting to touch or choose the fruits or vegetables yourself, I agree, a lot of them don’t let you. But it all depends; some people do, and some let you after a while of you buying from them and getting to know you, and some only serve you the best of what they have. It’s a mix really, just like the whole society is.
It’s the same in many places in the world.
I totally encourage you to start a blog of your own, I’m sure it’ll be great 🙂
Wonderful posting. Great pictures. We are all going so fast these days, driven by a new global economy to do everything faster, bigger, and cheaper. Markets such as the one you describe remind us all to slow down and truly appreciate the origins of the beautiful bounty we receive on our plates.
Even in America where the Supermarket dominates, there are a great many farmers markets to be found (at least in most west coast cities). Farmers markets are a great way to connect to local products and the people who produce them, and here in USA the products are generally healthier because they don’t use the pesticides to mass produce.
The older Tunisian gentleman in his finery is a strong, yet subtle statement to us all. In the days when my parents were young, their parents would dress them up in fancy clothing, and too they would donn on their suits to go shopping. Jeans and T-shirts were completely out of the question back then!
In my mother’s family, (they grew up in Chicago, Illiniois) her father would bring them to get an ice-cream, or a malted at the soda shop while her mom would be shopping nearby at the butcher, the green grocer and the sundries person. Back then milk delivery was the norm (the 50’s and even 60’s)
It is wonderful to slow down, talk and listen to the merchants and discover the both the triumphs and tribulations they faced in y faced in getting a particular item to market that day. The food tastes that much better going down.
Thanks for another great entry MMM!
jmarie, Thanks for the nice comment 🙂
I totally agree that the food tastes much better going down 🙂
We have to slow down every once in a while and enjoy the simple things in life.
Here in the US, farmers market policies vary somewhat. Most are perfectly happy to have you pick your own fruit and bag them yourself; that’s certainly the way I prefer it. But the biggest farmers market in Boston, Haymarket, is quite different. I always seem to forget they don’t like having their fruit touched and I get yelled at every time I try to examine the peaches, plums or nectarines.
If you’re ever in Boston, Haymarket on Saturday is a fascinating experience. Huge kiosks of fruits and vegetables, along a row of shops full of halal markets run by the local Somali community. The diversity of people is always extraordinary, particularly since Boston’s neighborhoods generally don’t seem very diverse….