While on a visit to Arles in Provence, a town that owes much of its fame in the U.S. to Caesar ’s VI army, Van Gogh and Christian Lacroix, I renewed my belief that a good life can be had anywhere if there is a great outdoor market within the area. Could it tip the balance and prompt a move or, in my case, a return home? You betcha!
The Italian market in Philadelphia is worth the trip, and so is the Italian market in Montreal as well as Atwater. The bazaar in Istanbul is intoxicating and Campo de Fiori in Rome is ravishing, but my favorite of all is the marché d’Arles. I am biased. I was born there and have been going there all my 55 years.
YOU CAN”T BEAT PRICES AND QUALITY!
At the bi-weekly markets, three heads of salad (lettuce-batavia-red leaf) cost 1 euro; organic parsley, mint and coriander by the bunch are 50 cents each; raw milk whole milk camembert fermier is 2.50 euro; olives and dates are 8.50 euro the kilo; six farm eggs are 1.80 euro; and 1 kg of chard is 1.50 euro.
For prepared food, pizzas made on order with black olives, anchovies and comte, 12 inches in diameter:10.50 euro for two; and one roasted chicken with potatoes: 8.00 euro. And, to haul it, a “cabas” costs 10 euro.
This bounty is as pleasurable and it is inexpensive, with the shopping ritual marked by friendly interactions with merchants at their cornupia-like tables. It makes it so easy to create meals glorified by the freshness and saveur of its ingredients.
YOU CAN FIND EVERYTING!
Produce, spices, live animals, flowers, chair repairs, brocante (antiques), second-hand clothing, new clothing, accessories, table-top, knives, tools, bedding, fabric by the yard, kitchen tools… You can find it all.
Even the junk is great, shiny, plasticky, retro. And guess what? At my last visit in February, I bought a classic red plaid Woolrich wool jacket, with a neck toggle, hands pockets, breast and waist pockets with flaps and snaps, back pocket for bagging the occasional rabbit but more likely a bunch of carrots. Vintage New
England: 10 euros. This lumbersexual prize is worth 300 bucks in Brooklyn!
Watch me going up and down, wanting to see everything on mountainous displays. The stuff is thrown at me. Man…I will fill these two huge baskets in no time.
This isn’t shopping; this is theater. Merchants at their stalls and buyers holding firm to their wallets, joking, jousting, bargaining. Everyone engaged. No smart phone could supplant this delightful and ancestral ritual. Medieval!
THE REWARD
The one-mile-long market, once walked up and down, provides a healthy mise-en-forme before a simple mise-en-place once back in your kitchen. If the time permits, a stop at Café Le Malarte, a loose meeting place, outdoors still regardless of the season, involves an aperitif and an impromptu rendezvous. All on foot. No car and no need to search for a parking space.
As a kid I tagged along with my mother with no particular interest but visibly
not insensitive to the displays. Occasionally, she would buy me a treat, a small brioche covered with granular sugar or an oreillette, which is a greasy beignet indigenous to Provence. In later years, on occasional visits home, I would buy second hand clothing, marketed as “stock americain”. Today I yearn for it all.
If there is a lifelong ritual, one that contributes to a yearly return to my hometown, le marché d’Arles is a large part of it. If there is a deeper feeling of a permanent return, le marché is all of it.
