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    Philadelphia Italian Market -Shut Your Mouth! Smell This! Italian Sausage And Other Sayings At The Philadelphia Italian Market
    Philadelphia Italian Market -Shut Your Mouth! Smell This! Italian Sausage And Other Sayings At The Philadelphia Italian Market
    Philadelphia Italian Market -Shut Your Mouth! Smell This! Italian Sausage And Other Sayings At The Philadelphia Italian Market
    Ebook137 pages58 minutes

    Philadelphia Italian Market -Shut Your Mouth! Smell This! Italian Sausage And Other Sayings At The Philadelphia Italian Market

    By Carl Bistrack

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    About this ebook

    The Philadelphia Italian Market - Something Old and something New. Or maybe Same old, same old! Not true, not true. Definitely not a travelogue. It’s an ages-old neighborhood, a South Philly open air, old world, walking, talking, hawking, instructions on classic Italian food– everything you wanted to know. The In and Out of Good and Strange. Or, put another way, would you walk into your supermarket to go food shopping if it looked and felt and smelt like that? (Smelt, not the fish, it’s Philadelphianese for Smell. Also instead of “You all”, or “Y’all,” there is “Yews,” not the trees or shrubs, but as in “Yews guys.” So much for Smelt, and Philadelphianese. After three short blocks, you’ll see a few tables sitting in front of the coffee and pastry store. Across the street there’s a two story high mural of cheese, and a three story high Frank Rizzo wall mural. He was the Philadelphia Police Commissioner that became the Philadelphia Mayor-hero of South Philadelphians.. But, there’s no Mario Lanza, or Sylvester Stallone/Rocky Balboa wall portrait here. There’s no Frankie Avalon, or Marion Anderson, or Jack Klugman and Joey Bishop, Jim Croce, or Chubby Checker murals – just Frank Rizzo and Cheese. But wait. You’ve never seen photos like these. (not the wall murals) Are they photos or art? Do vegetables really look like this? All roads lead to Italian Sausage and pasta. How can you smell and salivate over photo art? How can cheese and appetizers, vegetable, fish and clams, pasta and steak sandwiches come at you like that? No salivating’s allowed. What do you have to gain by walking into a market butcher shop? You’ll hear and see things you only heard about, and never saw in a supermarket. There was deer, rabbit, alligator, snake, ostrich, and on. Is this Italian food? You may be looking at the meats but what you’re hearing can be more interesting. A talking cook book is going on with a customer and a white jacketed butcher. There’s an argument. This time it’s the spices, not the cut of meat. A spice accompaniment disagreement ensued. Spices in a butcher shop? Then there was an Italian pronunciation similar to bra-tcho-lee which is braciole. (the spelling) But what about sausage? Decorative ceilings take on a whole new meaning – hanging sausages. They’re only a teaser – the link to fit with what they’re selling. From the time you walked in, you noticed the spice and sausage odors drift downward to hit your senses. A pepperoni almost hits you. Is this a pasta store?.Might smell like a sausage but it isn’t just a sausage store. And then someone shouts “Shut your mouth.” A brief silence and then a “Smell this!.” Be prepared for this one. But what about cheese?:You may think a narrow store is very limiting, and that 3.5 persons standing closely together is overwhelming, but it’s not. You’ll experience a sensory utopia that closeness can bring you in this cheese shop. The customers are moving a step at a time. Brings you the smell of a cheese. It repeats itself. The eye does a zoom onto one cheese or another. This seeing is made possible through the selective smelling you’ve come upon; It’s an instinct. You, no doubt, have eaten many types of things in many different ways over years of maturing. Did someone ever photograph you eating a Philly Cheese Steak on a big roll loaded up and down with spicy ingredients? Was your head tilted right or left when biting or chewing into the fat, long roll? No talking – not needed or can’t. But, how good. And then there are the two famous cheese steak parking spot stories But what’s for dessert? Ever eat a 110 year old cannoli while looking for your car?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCarl Bistrack
    Release dateAug 2, 2015
    ISBN9781311566539
    Philadelphia Italian Market -Shut Your Mouth! Smell This! Italian Sausage And Other Sayings At The Philadelphia Italian Market
    Author

    Carl Bistrack

    Carl Bistrack spent over 25 years in film production. He lived in the Philadelphia area. When he transitioned from film, he designed several ergonomic pens and grips and was awarded US Utility Patents for EzGrip products. But he missed the visual aspects of his work. He took up a long-lost photo hobby. And of course, with newer digital photo technology, it became even more enjoyable. He started doing photos and developed a style that became a combination of photos and art. Like film, his intention was they become a detailed self-explained story in themselves. It was visual journalism without the journalism – textless. But, it is art. He finds it hard to explain exactly what they are. Cooking is another hobby. All the earlier film production travel exposed him to a wide range of foods. How can such a variety of food not become an interest? And that leads to the Italian Market. How do you explain a great market and ingredients in a book? How to show it visually in an artistic, and journalistic way to tell its unique story? It’s so very different from anything else. He worked on the photos for a year. In 2014 he moved to Wilmington, NC a city by the ocean. He spent another year writing the book and finishing the photos. Some of those photoart pieces are now in several art galleries. The Elder Gallery in Charlotte NC selected Clams an Italian Market photo-art piece out of 3000 entries for a 117 piece N/S Carolina-wide exhibit. That started the art gallery interest process.

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      Book preview

      Philadelphia Italian Market -Shut Your Mouth! Smell This! Italian Sausage And Other Sayings At The Philadelphia Italian Market - Carl Bistrack

      The Philadelphia Italian Market - Something Old and something New.

      Or maybe – Same old, same old! Not true, not true.

      Definitely not a travelogue. It’s an ages-old neighborhood – a South Philly open air, old world, walking, talking, hawking, instructions on classic Italian food. It teaches you Italian cooking – everything you wanted to know except in the restaurant and TV style.

      It’s a food market with people bumping up against each other – for the better mostly. There’s a repeat seeing the same things over and over again – to your advantage actually. And, a walking-into-a-crowded-store dance that works with your rhythm and that of many others in unison.

      You’re in for a delight, maybe with a little restriction – a slower pace – a walk that makes for a non carousel ride. But look at it in this way: You’re in for a three plus block Italian market walk that’s something like standing on a conveyor belt that takes you along in a direction. Problem is, well, not a real problem, but it takes you through a maze with shopping bag bumps coming from others travelling in the opposite direction. It feeds you information as you go. It’s a participation event that works as if listening to a recorded version – absolutely multi-lingual – of a food travel tour, but it’s not. The repeated recording, with sight variations from point to point, gives you feedback you never expected. It’s one of those live and learn rides. It always gets better.

      Do you think it’s excessive to describe things in this way based on the fact you’re only going to be walking past fruit and vegetables, and walking into cheese, pasta and butcher shops, and others? You’ll be surprised.

      Now add to that an ArtScape – a photographic art Italian Market depiction. It’s a never before seen photographic art style that’s new and different. You’ll see things presented as THE Italian Market way – pieces fit together in a storytelling reality art, but in a non-photojournalist way. These can’t be found in any books or on the internet or anywhere else – for now. They show the ingredients, and the reflections of the things you walk by and walk on. They are opportunities and visualizations you’ve never seen but can experience them every day if you’re there. You’ll remember them. You’ll even insist you can smell some of them.

      You can enjoy the trip here and disregard the bump and bruise encounters. They can be avoided on a future visit with the enclosed pre-warning instructions, and diagrammatic step-at-a-time method – to be revealed. It’s promised it’s not one of those dance step instruction patterns laid out on the floor that you follow with your partner step-by-step. But, it basically means - be forewarned. Pay attention to the positive advice.

      You WILL enjoy this! (An Italian expression)

      Not a doubt!

      THEY’RE ALL HERE! à la carte! PICK A cart – any cart

      You’re about to see the same old types of things that have been around for over a hundred years. Maybe they’re presented in a slightly different way, but not too far from the original. A hundred years later, you know the people change. We know there are different merchants working at the curb-side carts, and at the grocery and pasta stores. They do change every once in a while. Some names don’t change though. There are third, fourth, and fifth generations of families that are operating the same stores that have been there from the market’s beginning. There are a few newer stores. What was once mostly Italian is a little more of a mixture of ethnicities. Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese… It’s Philadelphia, not just South Philly.

      All this time, the division of foods has stayed the same. There’s the fruit and vegetable side of the street with a few different meats, chicken, and chocolates stores. There’s the Italian sausages, meats, cheeses and pasta side – not excluding the prepared food walk-up windows where you can get pizzas, pork, sausage and steak sandwiches slid out to you through the order counter window.

      Over the many years, there have been hundreds of articles and photographs of the Philadelphia Italian market. This market’s been a part of Philadelphia since its beginnings in the late 1890’s, but it only became officially known as the Italian Market in the 1970’s. Maybe the name is newer, but the market is basically the same historic oldest open air market in the Unites States.

      Here’s the beginning of a visit to the Italian Market from outside of the area. You’ll understand why it’s being approached slowly. Doesn’t matter if you’re a Philly resident or a tourist visiting the area, you can be driving there from any other part of Philadelphia or outside the city or any other state. Although there are other means and public transportation, this description relates to driving a car to get

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