THE ART MARKET
here’s an alcove in room 11 of London’s National Gallery that contains just four pictures, all of food. Fleshy slabs of meat, plucked birds, shoals of fish, loaves and grains, and in one a giant ribbed cabbage held aloft by a pretty woman with a recessive hairline, which was fashionable back in the day.
Painted by 16th-century Flemish artist Joachim Beuckelaer, this collective vision of satiation is called The Four Elements. The fishmonger’s catch stands for water, the butcher’s bloody haul is symbolic of fire and the vegetable grower’s bounty is associated with earth. Poultry, for some reason, represents air. Perhaps because after too many hot wings one has chicken breath.
Not far from the gallery, at the food market on the south bank of the Thames, these paintings come to life. There may not be a woman in a mob cap with an enormous forehead (although you never know), but there are tables drowning under symmetrical rows of fish and crates draped with bright flags of tomatoes, berries and radishes. There are glass sarcophagi full of steaming pies and baskets of apples so exquisite they would send Cezanne back to his drawing board in a bad mood.
Outdoor markets are the art galleries of the food world. Most things look better in the sun than they do under fluorescent lights — except for celery, which doesn’t look like much in any light. This is why tourists from countries ruled by supermarkets irritate the locals in other parts by lingering to take pictures of a camembert that someone else is trying to buy.
That’s the difference between art galleries and food markets. At a market, for a lot less money than what a painting would cost, you can take the exhibits home with you. You can pick an aubergine that matches your couch and hang it on your wall if you so choose, and if it rots you can go back to the market and buy a younger, fresher replacement. Or you could eat it.
Most people do not go to supermarket chains simply to admire the nuts and salami. Plenty of people go to food markets to do this. There is, however, an odd sort of envy that kicks in when, as a tourist, you see a priest with a glistening lettuce in each hand, trying to decide which will taste best in his evening salad, and all you have in your clearly foreign hands is a camera.
I once bought an armful of kale at a market in Florence. There they call it cavolo nero. I had nowhere to cook it, nor could I take it home on the plane, but I was so pleased to see it — because most South African supermarkets don’t stock it — that I couldn’t resist. Actually, the real reason I bought it is because everyone else was picking out white onions and prickly artichokes and zucchini flowers, and I felt left out and alone.
Walking around the market with a metrehigh bunch of wet, dark leaves clutched to my chest made me feel as though I belonged. It was like having a companion. I could stop and look at wheels of parmesan and buckets of bocconcini with impunity, because my kale marked me as a genuine shopper. It also made it impossible for me to get to my purse and buy anything else, which was probably a good thing.