This Little Tater Goes to Market...

We regularly enjoyed the Capital City Public Market while we lived in Boise. We spent many Saturday mornings browsing for veggies and the occasional steak; Tina even sold hanging flower baskets several years ago.  It's an event that transforms the downtown streets with which we're so familiar into a park of sorts, where we always ran into friends.

Given that CCPM was a touchstone for us, we looked forward to our visit yesterday to Philadelphia's rough equivalent, the Reading Terminal Market.

We knew about the most obvious differences before we arrived: Reading Terminal Market is open daily and is permanently housed indoors in a space that consumes a full city block. It's home to about 80 merchants that sell everything from flowers, fruits and veggies to seafood, meats and spices. And it's old: The RTM will celebrate its 115th anniversary next February.  Generations of Philadelphians have visited the Market to browse or to buy their daily groceries; a couple of the original vendors remain.

The thing that stood out as the most salient takeaway was the large number of purveyors of prepared foods. Like Boise's CCPM there are a number of vendors selling baked goods, a creperie and a "booth" representing a local winery. In addition to these, though, there are food-court sized sellers including Thai, sushi, cajun, a ton of delis and of course cheesesteak sandwiches (editors note: in Philadelphia these sandwiches are simply called "steaks"; to refer to them otherwise, especially as a "Philly cheesesteak", is to mark oneself as an ignorant outsider, akin to someone visiting Boise referring to the city as "Boy-zee" and assuming the city is simply a cluster of buildings among the potato fields.) Restaurants make up the largest category of vendor type on the RTM's website by a large margin.

The fact that the RTM vendors are housed in a permanent structure makes the proliferation of food vendors possible, of course. And while we each had an excellent breakfast prepared by a market vendor - Tina a ham and cheese omelette served by a deli (of sorts) run by an Amish family, while Kenn inhaled a breakfast po-boy sandwich of fried eggs, cheese and andouille sausage offered by the Cajun restaurant - we came away with the impression that Reading Terminal Market is as much a food court as a farmers' market. A really cool and interesting food court, but a food court nonetheless.

A couple of interesting anecdotes that added color to our experience (if you'll pardon the awkward expression): Noticing a vendor called "The Shoe Doctor" on the RTM website, Kenn dropped off several pairs of shoes to be shined while he and Tina shopped and explored. He returned at the end of their visit and asked to have the pair he was wearing shined, interrupting a vigorous and animated conversation among the two African-American men working at the stand and their two compatriots. They quickly wove him into their discussion about the topic du jour (one of the men was having trouble with his landlord) and praised his choice in shoes ("nice, for a white guy" one of the men said with a huge smile and laugh). Four pairs professionally shined for $15; Kenn gave him a $20 and plans to return after the rest of his clothing is released from the movers' storage on Nov. 1.

Tina was pleasantly surprised at the availability of organic and gluten-free foods available at the RTM. And she confessed, while savoring her omelette, to harboring a belief that the Amish vendors she saw at the market were actors wearing plain clothing and head coverings. We'll find out today, when we visit Lancaster PA, epicenter of the Pennsylvania Dutch culture.