Preparing food sightseeing

Know your – local -blogger. This is what helped me. With just a few hours time a got some great impressions of what kind of food or produce is characterizing Zürich in Switzerland.

In my case it was Nicole Hasler the “zumfressngern” blogger. Her blog covers a lot of topics around meat, especially from a nose to tail perspective and on modern cuisine with a soul. Anybody a more perfect guide in mind?

And for a guy who is too lazy to prepare food sightseeing, it was really a blessing to know her and get some insights. Without this local knowledge, I believe I would have missed far more than half of what I was able to see and taste.

First impressions of Zürich

Zürich is a rich city. I am not used to that. Walking through the city center, I was impressed by the magnitude of luxury shops, not necessarily the usual luxury brands, rather something distinct and unique. All a bit beyond my budget but great to look at.

Zürich is a clean city. I am not sure how they make it. Are the people just behaving better than the ones in other localities? Or are there little elves which make everything non orderly disappear? Anyway, it left an impression on me.

Somehow all of this was a bit intimidating for an outsider but it gave a great sense of safety. I had no worries to walk after a few drinks at night being afraid of slipping and breaking a leg due to a banana skin on the walkway.

Starting food sightseeing

Before heading towards the real thing from the perspective of this blog, I was told to visit two food sections in department stores in downtown. Not my usual way of discovering the food “personality” of a city or village.

I have to say I was overwhelmed. The cheese section in the “Coop City St. Annahof” was pure paradise. The cheeses were in a separate room, a humidor, ensuring relatively high humidity so that the cheeses did not have to be wrapped every time. The variety of Swiss mountain cheeses was unbelievable. And the lady behind the counter incredibly helpful and humorous. She shrink-wrapped my cheese selection for home so that nobody would become jealous of my Swiss goodness while traveling. For my personal “streetfood” experience she cut some cheese cubes. They were gone fast. I thanked her by making the heart sign with my hands, she instantly asked if I was married and as I affirmed it, she mumbled “always the wrong guys are married” Well, I like those conversations which end in compliments (deserved or undeserved) …

The next stop was the food section, more precise the meat section of the Globus department store. The number of different cured hams and the meats from the best places on this planet was incredible, the same for the terrines. They did not have Swiss Magalica ham, but the alternatives were excellent as well and added to my streetfood treasures.

With these two discoveries my colleague and I had a small feast before heading for lunch in the market hall “Im Viadukt” my true destination.

Heading towards the market hall

The good thing about focusing on food and produce in a new location is that the weather seems not so important. And in November I do not expect anything else than: grey. As long it does not rain, strolling through the city is fine.

While walking for almost half an hour towards the market hall I was trying to think what I could expect. I was told to go there by my local blogger, and I knew that it would not be a mistake. This way I was at least prepared to see quality destinations, still I am always angry about myself of not doing more. There are always these questions which need some guidance beforehand: what is the characteristic food and cuisine of the region, what kind of produce are popular, in season etc. How are the markets, more producer or more trader centric? What kind of treasures should I look for. Yes, discovery is nice, but preparation is better. Next time, maybe … When I get smarter.

Market hall “Im Viadukt”

A “Viadukt” is an overpass, and in this specific case one for the railway dating from the 1890s . Underneath embedded is the market hall which opened in 2010. For more details see the history section of the homepage.

The whole market hall is modern. At first sight I got a bit worried, it immediately felt like a place that had been transformed into a concept piece of real estate, not leaving enough room for creative shop owners. The booths were predefined in some aspects like the patterns of the fronts close to the ceiling. I had the same mixed feelings when I was at the Fresh Market in Bratislava, where the booth pattern put restrictions on design opportunities and lacked personality. But after a while I saw that the individual characters of the shops with certainly good to excellent products.

Well crafted traditional products like cheese, meat, sausages and pasta were next to “cool” lemonades, craft beers and chocolates. And not to forget the “street food” offers, like pies, Asian inspired and European dishes. A few produce, potatoes being my favorite, and flowers completed the offering I saw. So how would I characterize the offering? It is not hipster despite some elements indicating it. It is not traditional despite some products coming from small producers. It is also not trendy, even when seeing the craft beer and hipster lemonades. So I guess it is for people who appreciate the value of products were classic craftsmanship cannot be replaced to create food perfection and who are at the same time open for new, “modern” food and taste discoveries.

My personal highlights

I am cheese fan and I like great sausages. I found both in the market hall. Absolute delights. The sheep cheese “Hölziges Schaf” was not a typical great Swiss mountain cheese and did not remind me of other sheep milk based cheeses. It was for more interesting in its aromas especially with its complex “acidity”. A class on its own. And thankfully it survived more than day without fridge to be savored at home .

For the “Schwein/Rind Salsiz” a porc and beef sausage which is dried and pressed, I was less worried about lack of cooling. The producer is Tanya Giovanoli who got back to the old butcher crafts to create again natural perfect meat products. Just by seeing all these sausages hanging on strings in a special fridge made me so happy. All these colors and shapes showed that they could not be produced in a factory. And the taste indicated it too.

More impressions

I could not buy from every booth, still there were a few more things which impressed me. The pasta guy who produced on site. The butcher who had such nice cuts and dry aged porc hanging to beautifully. And the the pie stall which provided our wild boar pie. It is produced by 8 ladies nearby. We shared the pie for lunch, a whole one would have been to much. Remember: we munched our ways through cheese and ham towards the market hall.

Even though the market hall is not huge there were more things to discover than to be expected at the beginning. So take more time than I had the chance to have, you will not regret it. And hunger and thirst will find relief in the restaurant.

Zürich from a food perspective

For me it is clear: Zürich stands for high quality food, especially cheese, meat and sausages. By my own definition it is a great city. With a little more money in the pocket a gourmet life in Zürich could be close to heaven.

All in all: In the market hall “Im Viadukt” in Zürich you will find great products, a lot from small Swiss producers and some nice places to eat. Worth a detour.

A little link list:

• The official website of the Markthalle im Viadukt in English
• The website of “my” local blogger
• The sausage producer Tanya Giovanoli
• The “Berg & Tal” booth were I bought the sausage
• The “Tritt Käse” booth where I bought the great cheese
• A post from lovefoodish including a short video on the market hall

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First things first!

What do you do first when you arrive at your vacation destination? Visit the market of course! So we had to get up a bit earlier on that wonderful day to drive to Pont-l’Abbé in the Bretagne (Brittany in English) region of France to get to the market in a decent time.

The setting of the produce section of the market at the Place Gambetta is very nice as it is contoured by linden trees. The two rows of stalls were facing each other, making strolling and buying very convenient. It was off-season, still plenty of people were making their purchases on this Thursday.

When reaching a new market I am always a bit nervous and hectic. What am I going to expect? How many stalls does the market have? Will I discover something new? What is the specialty on this market? Those are all the questions coming to my mind. And then I want to take pictures without annoying people. In short: I should learn to relax a bit One day I will.

Getting the overview

First I made a quick tour getting an idea what the market is about. The one in Pont-l’Abbé is what I call a typical French market: produce focused, predominantly from the region, often from producers themselves who are willing to have a chat and tell you about their products. There is nothing hipster like to discover, not a lot of streetfood. It seems to me that the innovations themselves have been the occurrence of organic produce and payment via credit card only. In short: the market is about seasonal quality produce for the daily cuisine which is made from scratch.

The offering is a classic one: vegetables, fruit, cheese, (salted) butter, meat & sausages, a bit of bread and pastry, mushrooms, etc. Still as a tourist who cannot store a lot of things, there is something to buy and eat. Strangely enough I did not see fish despite Pont-l’Abbé being a coastal town. It seems rather to be a business of the market halls.

What were the discoveries?

We were lucky as we had a stove, fridge and dishwasher (!) in our vacation home: no significant restrictions for shopping.

I come from sausage country, especially those you just put in the pan. And I was lucky. The producer “La ferme de Kérautret” raises his own animals, get them killed in a nearby slaughterhouse before processing them into the right cuts and sausages. The reason for the animals not being killed on site are the EU laws with their standards including hygiene which makes is hard to maintain an own small slaughterhouse. I got some duck and pork sausages which were gone instantly in the evening after a long day on the road (I am not afraid of having food away from a fridge for a longer period of time). They were certainly worth the purchase, such great taste, no need to add anything, not even my beloved mustard.

And then the tomatoes from an organic stall. At home tomatoes are usually a disappointing experience for me. It does not matter where I buy them, they never seem to have a truly great taste. A friend of mine recently went to the Romanian country side and discovered how much taste they can really have. I was jealous since I am looking for years into such an experience. Here they had different colors and shapes. Yellow, green, red, round, egg shaped. In the evening I just cooked them all in one pot for a sauce and I was surprised: such a nice play of acidity and sweetness, it was truly great. Something you could truly call a tomato.

I also purchased some nice salted butter and cheese from a small organic stall. The Bretagne cake we bought from a bread and pastry stall was rather uninteresting. The honey from buckwheat or chestnut areas had real intense aroma and made its way back home.

Street food

What is “always” to be found on French markets are a certain type of take-away food stalls. Usually they have huge pans (1m in diameter perhaps) on a stove. Classic foods are paella or couscous, but also other dishes I am less familiar with. We skipped these ones, but tried some vegetarian samosas from a Vietnamese (?!) stall. Great taste, complex and very pleasant level of heat.

By the way: it is easy to heat up your food, there is a public (?) microwave not far from the produce section, in front of the market hall.

Epilogue

Was it worth to have visited the market as the first thing? For sure! We got a taste of the area and had something to eat in the evening. In one of the next posts I will report about the market hall in Pont-l’Abbé.

One little remark: I described mainly the produce section at the place Gambetta, the larger part of the market is at the place de la République in front of the market hall around the corner where the majority of the stalls are to be found, but they less produce ones.

All in all: The market in Pont-l’Abbé is a classic French market with all the goodies you need for cooking and a little bit of take away food.

A little link list:

• The market mentioned on the homepage of the city of Pont-l’Abbé
• The site of the ferme de Kérautret who had such great sausages
• My other posts on French markets

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Theme markets in Bonn

Every few weeks there is a theme market at the Bonn main market. Basically it is either a French or an Italian one. In both cases the vendors celebrate foods & produces or their original countries. And for the first time I took a closer look to the Italian one.

The offering

The dozen or so stalls are lined up in two rows back to back. Each one is representing a different region of Italy like Tuscany, Lombardy, Sicily etc. thus giving broad insights into the regional delicacies.

Still the main offering is about cheeses, hams and salamis, all in large varieties and quantities. Salami with fennel, wine, truffles, or from wild boar; cheeses from cow or sheep milk including the famous ones as Parmesan cheese but also great mountain cheeses, all of those were present.

I also had the opportunity to discover some new produce like the nicely spiced wild boar fillet jerky called Coppiette (see picture gallery) or a gorgeously smooth but distinct mountain cheese from Tuscany – a surprise to me, as I only think of hills in Tuscany, not mountains.

To be fair the variety went far beyond ham, salami & cheese, but I needed to look a bit closer. Yes, there was plenty of olives to buy and obviously olive oil. Sicily showed it’s marzipan style sweets but also many other ones I am still not familiar with (check the pics). Bread was available and I was told that it was even baked in Italy – nevertheless still looking fresh after the transport. At home the quality did not convince me, especially considering the price.

One stall offered Italian street food and of course I could not resist to buy myself a little lunch. The Bruschetta was simple and delicious, no idea where the tomatoes came from, they had real taste, something I am not used to anymore. Besides the bruschetta, antipasti samples cooked at site, sandwiches and Foccacia were available, all looking delicious.

This theme market offered a very nice round trip through regional Italian products, sampling was generous.Prices were rather on the higher end, I cannot judge if always justified.

How does the theme market work?

As this Italian theme market moves in a weekly rhythm from city to city like a traveling circus, I got curious on how the whole thing works.

It seems to be fairly simple. There is a company called Athena International owned apparently by an Italian and a German which manages the whole tour. This means finding the locations in German cities (in 2015 28 cities), providing the infrastructure for the stalls, e.g. permissions, tents, banners, and acquiring Italian traders who manage their own stall and profits. The company is always looking for new vendors.

The Italian traders themselves need to be able to source their own high quality produce from the various regions. German language knowledge is not really a prerequisite, but all vendors know how to offer samples, explain some basics on their offering and closing the deal. Somehow it is comforting that the vendors are “real Italians”, it certainly improves the credibility of the market.

Hard life

For the traders life is not easy. Changing location every week, not being able to settle and put down roots is strenuous. As the caravan moves for months within Germany, the – mostly male – traders are separated from their families at home. Doing this for years in a row, partly due to lack of job alternatives in Italy, is a true burden. So I hope they make a decent profit to get off the circuit after a while. I am grateful to their service as it gives me the possibility to dig deeper into Italian food lifestyle.

All in all: This traveling theme market “circus” is a nice way for a focused discovery of regional Italian delicacies.

A little link list:

• The organizers of the traveling Italian theme market Athena International
• A short video on the Italian theme market

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Coming from North where the grey autumn weather reigned, the sun in Cassis lightened up life. The splendor of this outdoor market on the beautiful town square close to the sea made me plunge into an eternal summer. The sun rays teased my eyes, the wind caressed  the – still – green leaves of the sycamore trees. People walked around without layers of winter clothes, relaxed and enjoying the smells and sights of the produce.

Walking by all the stalls, summer vacation feeling came up with all the produce the Mediterranean / Provençal region is offering. Somehow the cheeses, dried sausages, olives, garlic, mushroom, fruit are deeply linked to easy life for me. Thinking of sharing these produce with some friends over a glass of vine is maybe pure kitsch, but it represents good life or a little paradise on earth. And it is very easy to get that feeling being at this square.

The market is located at the “Place (square) Baragnon” just a minute away from the picturesque city harbor. The square is surrounded by well trimmed sycamore trees, it is covered by tile style stones which could be suitable for an elegant dance in the evening. The benches invite for a rest and observation of people walking by. The old fountain helps to wash of the dust from your hands. Kind of a picture book square.

Still somebody has to work to provide such an invitation to joyful life. The vendors are presenting nice produce, many of them suitable for tourists as well, since the city beach is close by to munch your purchases. The offering is diverse enough to get the taste of the region. I bought a small basket full of little dry goat cheeses, which were a great snack in the evening. Furthermore a fruit paste (see picture gallery) went into my bag for dessert as well as bit of dried sausage. I missed out the beautiful olives and Tapenade (olive paste) which I truly love. The typical cubic olive soaps were left out as well. And the marinated garlic, and honey wine, and…

But the memories are still alive of this “eternal summer” feeling.

All in all: a feel good market with the goodness of the Provence

A little link list:

• The markets in Cassis with operating times (French)
• A town guide from Marvelous Provence

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Getting there

Conveniently located right at the subway station “Rochusgasse” (line U3) this market welcomes you during day & night time with produce, convenience food, quick lunches and time for coffee or a drink at night.

Similar to the famous Naschmarkt most of the stalls are permanent structures looking almost like a compound. Many of them are rather restaurants or pubs than classic stalls where to buy produce. There are also temporary stalls like at a regular farmer’s market. Still the choice is wide and ranges from local products to international specialities and even brands.

The vendors and their future

As one vegetable stall owner said: “I wish we had more vegetable sellers, as with my small surface I cannot cater for all the demand”. But managing such a stall is hard work, getting up at 3 am to be at the Vienna wholesale market to get the right quality products and working until the evening hours. Him and his wife have done it for 32 years! So they have hard time to find staff adhering to such working hours, even though he closes the stall for 2 months per year to have some rest. He and and his wife will probably be without a successor when they retire.

Another aspect some vendors fear are the attempts of law makers to apparently only allow packaged products. It would make the difference between supermarkets and open markets much smaller in terms of offerings, e.g. cheese. Markets would then become less attractive. This reminds of the efforts some years ago in the European Union not to allow anymore cheese making from raw milk. This attempt failed at the end to the benefit of a culture of artisan cheeses as offered at the Rochus market.

The transition of the market

The market is changing over time. Once there were more classic businesses on this market, e.g. 3 butchers instead of one today. Now many stalls are lunch places, restaurants or pubs. There is even a fish franchise “Nordsee” from Germany selling fresh fish and fast food. This is good for people in need for some quick lunches or a drink in the evening, but it takes away the character of a typical picture book market.

Nebertheless the Rochus market benefits from a huge popularity and support according to the vendors. Business is not declining.

The offering

The temporary stalls offer a mix of standard and local offers or specialities. A Greek vendor is selling since 8 years artisan products like cheese, sausages and ham from the western part of Austria (Vorarlberg). I saw some nice porcini mushrooms, grapes from the south of Austria, local cowberries. This offering is positioned next to other seasonal products easily available in supermarkets as well, but probably in a better quality.

The permanent stalls have their own specialities as well. The cheese shop had a nice selection of Austrian and other cheeses. The spiced fatback (Gewürzspeck) sold there (!) caught my eyes, a real delight and easy to bring back home as it does not need refrigeration.

The butcher “Radatz” had a very wide offering in meats, sausages and convenience food. The marinated chicken and beef mixed with vegetables were ready made for the pan for quick cooking, a feast for the eyes. Organic beef was also available. Furthermore he offered a large variety of other prepared foods like baked chicken schnitzels and the like. All in all a good mix of basic products and convenience food.

All in all: Worth a visit when you come by, good for a quick lunch and some culinary souvenirs

A little link list:

• A quick introduction into the markets in Vienna from vienna-insight.at
• For those who can read Arabic letters, a post from Iranian Vienna

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Don’t go there, they will rip you off because they want to make a quick buck with lower quality products. Take care of your wallet, it might get pick pocketed.

Well those were the advices I got, but I did not listen. And it was to my advantage.

The Nová Tržnica (market hall) in Bratislava is a fairly large concrete building dating from the socialist area (1981). On the ground floor there is mainly stalls for produce and a few pubs, whereas upstairs it looks a bit more like a mall without the glittery part. The inside architecture shows concrete, large pipes, large stairs as well as large windows which try to create a grand ambiance. This grand ambiance was contrasted by the not so large stalls with vendors dealing in retail, not in wholesale. And the bright colours of some stalls, pipes etc. created some nice contrast.

Unfortunately it was a bit late when I had the chance to tour the market hall. The market serves local people rather than tourists with daily food, drinks and a few other items. Pubs, little restaurants are to be found on both floors all with a basic charm which may be called authentic.

Besides fruits, vegetables, flowers there is also local cheeses & meats available. In Slovakia smoked cheeses are quite common and so they are to be found here as well, often as string cheese. And it is not only cow milk which is being used, but also sheep or goat milk. Bryndza a creamy sheep milk cheese, available as well, serves as the main ingredient of Bryndzové halušky a national Slovak dish. Besides Bryndza it consists of gnocchi like potato dumplings and bacon.

The dried sausages I bought were quite hearty and nicely spiced, a winner. The smoked pork belly fat should have been worth a trial as well.

A unique stall was the one which filled three different type of wines from tap into all kinds of bottles, plastic and other ones. Good recycling of bottles I guess.

All in all: as daytripper.sk put it: it is a good place to look for if you do not need glamour and hipness.

A little link list:

• Pictures of the building in Wikipedia Commons
• Basic information about the markets in Bratislava from bratislava.info
• A post from daytripper.sk which characterizes the market very well

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Some time ago I blogged on Soulard Market in St. Louis, Missouri and I knew it would not be the last time. And so I re-visited it after a few years.

Soulard Market is still impressive to me. It has a very nice, quite original choice of products, catering for needs of all types of communities. The meat comes from all kinds of animals, incl. frogs, the vegetables appear in all their shapes and colours, there is nuts I have not seen elsewhere like whole black walnuts, which are really hard to crack, there is a great spice shop, of course there are also cheeses, even raw milk ones, and seafood is available (sea is quite far). But there is also funny popcorn, donuts etc. Not everything is regional, but everything is interesting and mostly of good quality.

And the crowd visiting the market seems to be as the market itself: rather unpretentious, not flashy, and with very diverse backgrounds, kind of little melting pot. Often people are coming with trolleys to carry their purchases, as it seems to be affordable for everyone unlike on some farmers markets.

Apparently a lot of vendors remain the same as the market has not changed much over the years. It has resisted any potential gentrification as described e.g. for Boston. Yes I missed the vendor of the hot sauces. The Goose Poop (a relish) stand was new to me and showed clearly attempts to create an own brand, rather unusual for this market. There was a new food stand as well, probably the one & only which might be close to be called hipster. They sold nice spring rolls, wraps and alike, ginger salad and more (how does that fit with Dr. Pepper, guys?). But otherwise? …

There seemed to be no substantial change. Is this good? Well, people seem to like it, the flow of visitors never stopped despite the hot humid summer. It is also nice to see some things become a tradition, having own roots and may be called something like home. Despite the lack of change, I have not observed complacency.

I am really curious about the times to come and how new generations of visitors and vendors will shape the market or how the master plan of the city of St. Louis will be put into action (or has it already been put into action?).

All in all: Soulard Market remains one of my favorite ones for its wide diversity in products and visitors, for its down to earth approach, and maybe for the stubbornness to remain as it is.

A little link list

• The official website – kind of …
• The one of the Historic Soulard Market Merchants Association Official Website soulardmarketstl.com
• On facebook
• On Twitter
• Soulard market on the St. Louis city site
• Master plan of the city of St. Louis concerning the market
• An interesting perspective on the development of the Boston Public Market and its impact on gentrification – from untappedcities.com
• A nice video presenting the market from Phil Stephenson

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The Holešovice market in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic is basically a large area covered by different halls. The hall 22 is the one we are looking for, as it is the one which is the closest to a farmers’ market. The other halls contain partly shops, flea markets and basically all sorts of stuff you might need or not in your daily life.

When I entered hall 22 at in the later afternoon, it was fairly empty, some stalls were already closed. Still enough to get an impression. The hall in itself is fairly large, quite larger than e.g. the Eastern Market in Washington DC. What is there to be found: vegetables of all sorts in rather large quantities if we add up all the stands. Fruit as well. Flowers, herbs were also available. But there was not so much meat, fish or cheese stands. Most of the produce seem to come from the Czech Republic, but I also saw produce from other Eastern European countries.

There were a few things which caught my eyes: the tons of banners across the hall, the one stand which sold whole sunflower seed heads, and a stand which had really nice looking dried sausages in really dark colors. I still do not know why I did not buy some. Maybe because the market was not very lively at the time, I did not feel so much the urge to buy something, despite the friendly sausage vendor.

All in all: Caters for daily life with a large selection of goods in a rather unusual setting.

A little link list:

• The official website of the market – here the English version
• Brief description on markets in Prague and how to get there from prague.tv
• A post on the market including its history from expats.cz
• A nice post on the rise of the Czech farmers’ markets by Radio Prague

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A fire destroyed the Eastern Market of Washington DC in 2007, but today nothing can be noticed. And the market hall still has a nice old fashioned charm. Outside there is an open market for stands on Tuesday afternoons and weekends. This outdoor market has just a nice roof structure and the trucks of the producers drive up to their stalls. When I visited the market the outdoor stands were just being set up. And I guess it was the first time that I saw Amish vendors.

The structure inside is simple. Fans do the cooling of the two rows for the vendors and the one aisle in the middle large enough to stroll around comfortably. Most of the stands seem to sell meat and sausages and the choices are very large. I found the loose home made sausage very appealing. It is even possible to see the artisan sausage production live at the stands. And it is nice to find also all kinds of bones with marrow, pig feet, etc.

But of course there are also baking goods, cheese (incl. French ones), artisan butter, fresh fish, vegetables, fruit etc., all the produce for basic needs. And there is also a place to get breakfast or lunch which is being appreciated by tourists as well as business folks.

The owners of the stands do not necessarily operate them, still the market hall definitely has an artisan appearance. And to a certain degree there are adaptations to modern taste: nice colorful pasta, cut fruit in cups to go etc.

All in all: Nice ambiance, serves all the basic needs with a large selection of meats and sausages. Pleasant place to have lunch.

A little link list:

• The official website
• On Wikipedia
• On facebook
• Nice blog post from inmediasrecipe.com with lots of pictures from the outdoor market, …
• … and here another good one from beyondmyfrontdoor.com
• On tripadvisor with many reviews
• Many reviews as well on Yelp

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Budapest, capital of Hungary is a jewel from a touristic perspective. The architecture of the old city is beautiful and find its expression also in the Central Market Hall (Központi Vásárcsarnok), which was opened in 1897. Just the building in itself is worth visiting it, the steel construction inside is beautiful. And the market is very spacious, none of the alleys is narrow, there is enough space to stroll without being disturbed too much. Since the location is in the inner city close to the Danube river, I would have expected a rather cramped feeling as space might be expensive.

The main floor is occupied by fixed stands which have all a similar appearance. Many signs are in English or German, so that the many tourists have an easy orientation. And this market caters a lot for tourists, serving all the Hungarian cliches: Hungarian salami, paprika, goose liver and the sweet Tokay wine. And there are stands, especially in the mezzanine which have Budapest mugs, T-Shirts etc.

There are still many stands serving daily needs of vegetables, fruit, meat, cheese etc. Often these seasonal products are presented in a lush, appealing way, generating some craving. It is also very nice how garlic and dried paprika are celebrated by hanging them in large, neat bundles in front of the stands instead of advertisement panels.

When it comes to Hungarian salami or other sausages one may find mainly brands like Pick or Temesvari Hus. But there are still butchers who offer fresh unbranded meat. The goose liver is mainly available in branded tin boxes, maybe there is some fresh one somewhere in this market.

If your luggage is already to heavy, you may still try Hungarian Food in some of the food stands in the mezzanine.

I did not have a lot of time to visit the whole market hall. In the basement there is supposed to be e.g. fish and game which was not available on the ground floor. But the market hall left me puzzled: the architecture is gorgeous and would support the celebration of special, creative, unique products with character. But this is only available in a limited way. Will I visit the market another time? Sure, because there must be some special treasures still to be discovered.

All in all: A must visit from an architectural perspective, from a gourmet perspective less impressive. But it is great for a quick shopping on Hungarian souvenirs, culinary and non-culinary ones.

A little link list:

• Official site in English with the history of the hall
• Another site in English, unfortunately not updated
• A nice, descriptive article from “On the run“
• A post with many pictures from alwaystravelicious.com
• Photos on Flickr

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