to market to market then eat some roast pig
After a little too much sun at the beach yesterday, I forbade going today. Somehow I rubbed off the suncreen on weird patches on my belly and one thigh, which are rosy but not badly burned. So this morning I woke up early to go to Porta Portese instead.
Porta Portese is a Trastevere market that stretches along several kilometers of Via Portuense, including some side streets and piazzas. It is hot and noisy and crowded and full of pickpockets; it is also one of my favorite things in the world. Housewares and clothes, new and used, antiques and CDs and complete junk fill up stalls that go on and on seemingly forever.
On my approach from a side street I encountered a booth full of parakeets and lovebirds and cockatiels. They had canaries singing as if they know full well that's their only reason to exist, and tiny angora bunnies startling at every move. I'm not sure how you're supposed to take a parakeet home from the market, it's not like a goldfish you could just throw in a plastic bag.
Today I was picking through piles of clothes with dozens of other women like so many pigeons scrabbling over crumbs. The hawkers sat or stood on the middle of their tables where they can watch everything and from where they scream out:
"AiO! due euro, due euro, due, due, due euuuuuuuuurrrrrroooo!"
"belle merce, belle merce, tutte belle merce"
"tre euro al pezzo, bella roba americana, tre, tre euro"
"ragazze, ragazze, vede questa parte qui, tutto solo due euro. ragazze, ragazze"
I wish I had a recorder.
One vendor made a particularly ugly scene when a Sinti Roma woman came to look through her piles of used clothes. "Get out of here," she screamed, "I see your bag already open. Get your dirty hands off my things, thief." Another gypsy girl passed me, a lithe young woman, maybe 15 years old, max, as stunning as any supermodel, with her toddler slung over a shoulder. More gypsy girls with babies were camped out around a CD vendor playing mesh, Eastern dance music. An older man displayed oozing sores on his ankles as he scooted down the pavement on his butt, unable to walk. Is that leprosy?! I watch them with a combination of pity and fascination and repulsion: I deplore the phenomenon of child brides and panhandling as a profession, I can't blame them. If my wallet went missing at the market I'd assume it was a Sinti Roma pickpocket. "Watch out for the Albanesi," I'm warned. (I don't know if that's an ellision of all poverty-striken peoples from parts East, or specifically about Albanians - and are these people from Albania at all?). I don't know to what my x parts prejudice and y parts legitimate concern add up.
I had a great conversation about fabrics with an antique linen dealer; I came home with ideas and addresses and without caving in to his sales pitch on a truly beautiful silk skirt from the 1950s. The price wasn't bad, I just don't really have much use for it. I was also tempted by an antique silver ex-voto, an offering made, usually to the Virgin Mary, representing her intervention in someone's life. In some churches you'll see a chapel filled with seat belts, motorcycle helmets, little paintings and silver objects, standing for the ways the offerer felt Mary saved them. I've always loved this tradition, and the idea of having an ex-voto to display seemed cool, but also creepy. I walked away wondering why it wasn't still hanging in a church.
After a few hours under the sun, I was experiencing Porta Portese overload. I was starting to sympathize with the African purse vendors near the entrance, with their sad, tired faces. I left in search of a good porchetta sandwich and a beer, which I found at Aristocampo in the corner of Campo dei Fiori. Good porchetta, a kind of roast pork with just the right amount of creamy fat left on, is the most divine sandwich meat. Aristocampo makes a particularly good one, full of garlic and herbs and often with a sliver with crispy skin still on it. On a crisp ciabatta with a cold beer -- I defy anyone to come up with a better one ingredient sandwich. It doesn't need condiments: the pork is flavorful and the fat melts out of the meat onto the roll, making the whole thing moist and savory.
Serving suggestion: follow with a nap.
Porta Portese is a Trastevere market that stretches along several kilometers of Via Portuense, including some side streets and piazzas. It is hot and noisy and crowded and full of pickpockets; it is also one of my favorite things in the world. Housewares and clothes, new and used, antiques and CDs and complete junk fill up stalls that go on and on seemingly forever.
On my approach from a side street I encountered a booth full of parakeets and lovebirds and cockatiels. They had canaries singing as if they know full well that's their only reason to exist, and tiny angora bunnies startling at every move. I'm not sure how you're supposed to take a parakeet home from the market, it's not like a goldfish you could just throw in a plastic bag.
Today I was picking through piles of clothes with dozens of other women like so many pigeons scrabbling over crumbs. The hawkers sat or stood on the middle of their tables where they can watch everything and from where they scream out:
"AiO! due euro, due euro, due, due, due euuuuuuuuurrrrrroooo!"
"belle merce, belle merce, tutte belle merce"
"tre euro al pezzo, bella roba americana, tre, tre euro"
"ragazze, ragazze, vede questa parte qui, tutto solo due euro. ragazze, ragazze"
I wish I had a recorder.
One vendor made a particularly ugly scene when a Sinti Roma woman came to look through her piles of used clothes. "Get out of here," she screamed, "I see your bag already open. Get your dirty hands off my things, thief." Another gypsy girl passed me, a lithe young woman, maybe 15 years old, max, as stunning as any supermodel, with her toddler slung over a shoulder. More gypsy girls with babies were camped out around a CD vendor playing mesh, Eastern dance music. An older man displayed oozing sores on his ankles as he scooted down the pavement on his butt, unable to walk. Is that leprosy?! I watch them with a combination of pity and fascination and repulsion: I deplore the phenomenon of child brides and panhandling as a profession, I can't blame them. If my wallet went missing at the market I'd assume it was a Sinti Roma pickpocket. "Watch out for the Albanesi," I'm warned. (I don't know if that's an ellision of all poverty-striken peoples from parts East, or specifically about Albanians - and are these people from Albania at all?). I don't know to what my x parts prejudice and y parts legitimate concern add up.
I had a great conversation about fabrics with an antique linen dealer; I came home with ideas and addresses and without caving in to his sales pitch on a truly beautiful silk skirt from the 1950s. The price wasn't bad, I just don't really have much use for it. I was also tempted by an antique silver ex-voto, an offering made, usually to the Virgin Mary, representing her intervention in someone's life. In some churches you'll see a chapel filled with seat belts, motorcycle helmets, little paintings and silver objects, standing for the ways the offerer felt Mary saved them. I've always loved this tradition, and the idea of having an ex-voto to display seemed cool, but also creepy. I walked away wondering why it wasn't still hanging in a church.
After a few hours under the sun, I was experiencing Porta Portese overload. I was starting to sympathize with the African purse vendors near the entrance, with their sad, tired faces. I left in search of a good porchetta sandwich and a beer, which I found at Aristocampo in the corner of Campo dei Fiori. Good porchetta, a kind of roast pork with just the right amount of creamy fat left on, is the most divine sandwich meat. Aristocampo makes a particularly good one, full of garlic and herbs and often with a sliver with crispy skin still on it. On a crisp ciabatta with a cold beer -- I defy anyone to come up with a better one ingredient sandwich. It doesn't need condiments: the pork is flavorful and the fat melts out of the meat onto the roll, making the whole thing moist and savory.
Serving suggestion: follow with a nap.
posted by Miss Adventure at 5:25 PM
1 Comments:
Ok, I love a challenge. I won't say my favorite one ingredient sandwich (hint - it's made from peanuts) because I can already imagine your face contorted into an expression of absolute disgust and pity. But how about some nice stilton? Or just a fresh avocado and some bread. Mmmm....
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