Posted by Seth on January 4, 2011 under Trip Reports | 
Buying meat in the United States is boring. You go into a grocery and there, under wrap and strict climate controls, are various bits of meat cleaned and prepared for you. In very few scenarios is there the option to talk with the butcher, explain what you want and work with them to get just the right cut. Plus, the chances of finding offal on offer are near nil.
Get away from the USA, however, and things start to get more interesting. The souks of Marrakesh, Morocco offered up a number of butchers working out of tiny storefronts with minimal facilities or apparent regulation. But the number of options available was significantly higher and you could truly request the exact bit you desired.
The meat is fresh. There is no 21-day dry-aged prime to choose from in these markets. Still, knowing that the meat is fresh every day, cut and trimmed in the morning and sold by that afternoon is somewhat comforting. Plus it is incredibly enjoyable to me to watch a butcher at work. Something about the way they manage to expertly carve up the huge carcasses into useful pieces with so little waste is impressive. And I’ve seen plenty of the “other” bits out on display in the markets here so it is clear that very little goes to waste. Seeing that stuff out and being purchased is lots of fun.
I’m sure that I’d be just as bad shopping in these markets as I am in the other parts of the souks. I suppose it is a good thing that all my meals have been prepared for me on this trip rather than having to source and cook myself.
Read more of my Marrakesh adventures here!
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Posted by Seth on December 25, 2008 under Uncategorized |
In honor of Christmas, a bit of a shopping tale…
Fifth Avenue in New York, particularly in midtown, is a shopping mecca. Flagship stores, decked out beyond belief and folks who actually shop in them flooding the streets, especially this time of year. Even on Christmas day Fifth Avenue is crowded with folks out shopping. The difference is that all the stores are closed.
So where are people shopping? In the secondary market that miraculously pops up to fill the gap. The legitimate stores are all closed, but I couldn’t make it 50 feet on the sidewalk without tripping over folks stopped to look at handbags, watches, shawls, sunglasses, names painted on signs and just about everything else you can imagine. On a normal day these “merchants” would be relegated to side streets for the most part thanks to NYC’s reasonably strict rules about sidewalk sales. But today, when all the stores are closed and the cops are mostly on vacation, the bootleggers get free rein.
I’m pretty sure that most the folks buying on the street know that all the stuff is fake. At least I really hope that they do. The one that worries me is the three-card monte. I passed at least three different games set up on the street this afternoon. One was in full swing while the other two were just getting warmed up. I couldn’t resist the urge to shout “Its a hustle” as I walked by. Hopefully the folks around don’t lose too much money.
Still, it was fun to see the other half getting their turn to be Fifth Avenue merchants, even if it is only for a day.
Posted by Seth on September 3, 2008 under Uncategorized |
We got a kilim instead.
I really thought that we might make it. We didn’t even stop at the carpet shops as we passed through the Bazaars of Istanbul – we just weren’t all that interested. In Cappadocia we actually stayed one night in the pensione attached to a carpet house, but again not all that interested. By the time we made it to Kayseri we still weren’t particularly interested (at least I wasn’t).
A young man chased us down to “practice his English” and escort us on a tour of the city as we did some wandering through the old town here, and it just happened that his uncle is a carpet merchant, and somehow our tour ended up in that section of the Bazaar in Kayseri. As an aside, the bazaar in Kayseri is way better than the one in Istanbul. People actually shop there, rather than just putting on the show for the tourists. Anyway, back to the main story. We had tea and talked about the history of the carpet industry and the various types of finished product they produce – there are four. We talked about where we live in New York and how he travels across Turkey working as a wholesaler to the various regions with his 80-90 employees working on the manufacture of products for him in the outskirts of town. We talked about why they couldn’t share tea with us (Ramazan) and how the guy was featured in a book (From Here to There) that was a travel memoir of some guy who passed through about 20 years ago.
After all the talking and a rather delicious glass of apple tea he finally started in on the sales process. It was everything I expected, with the guy going through quite a few of the kilims in the store to show us a variety of options in various colors, patterns and themes. And I was completely ready to walk out without buying if none of them met my fancy. One of them, however, did. It is apparently made of undyed yarn with the various colors coming naturally from the sheep. And I like the pattern, as an added bonus. Finally, as we eliminated a couple dozen of the other options and got down to the two carpets we’d consider some prices were tossed about. They were in the ballpark and I figured that the piece was nice enough that I’d take a stab at the negotiations. He started with the asking price and I came in at about half of that. He started to come down and I inched up a hair, but really not much at all, guessing that I was probably already over the minimum he’d accept and knowing that I’d be OK walking away without the piece. The end of the negotiations went something like this:
Him: What’s your absolute maximum?
Me: Nnn <Number omitted to protect the innocent>
Him: I’ve come down 200 and you’ve only come up 50. Be reasonable.
Me: I started at Zero. I’ve moved further on the number than you have. And that’s my maximum.
Him: Shake my hand. Let’s go to the cash machine to get the money.
And then the deal was done. I’m still not completely sure that I can get it packed into my suitcase to make it home without carrying it as a brown paper bundle on the airplane, but that just adds to the fun. And it really is a beautiful piece, even if I did pay more than I had to for it. Besides, the rug it is replacing is vile, so I’m happy to be able to get rid of that.
Other than the kilim, nothing really all that impressive to recommend Kayseri as a destination while in Turkey. We probably wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for the 6:45am flight out tomorrow. And it certainly presents challenges for tourists, particularly those who don’t speak much Turkish. We managed to get by at dinner and it was actually quite delicious (Iskander, if you’re ever here and looking for something to eat), but if we hadn’t already been here a week I fear that the results would not have been so positive.
The meat is fresh. There is no 21-day dry-aged prime to choose from in these markets. Still, knowing that the meat is fresh every day, cut and trimmed in the morning and sold by that afternoon is somewhat comforting. Plus it is incredibly enjoyable to me to watch a butcher at work. Something about the way they manage to expertly carve up the huge carcasses into useful pieces with so little waste is impressive. And I’ve seen plenty of the “other” bits out on display in the markets here so it is clear that very little goes to waste. Seeing that stuff out and being purchased is lots of fun.
