MARKET DAY

It’s rainy here in Chianti today, at times it poured, the storm gave a substantial amount of water to the thirsty Tuscan countryside.

Yesterday, we went to the market in San Giovanni Valdarno, a town west of Montevarchi on the Arno River (Valdarno – Valley of the Arno). We’d visited the town on Thursday and were very impressed with its wide main streets, beautiful piazzas, and profusion of shops. [Not to mention the moving Marian shrine in the Basilica and the perfect little gem of a museum]

Piazza Cavour - San Giovanni Valdarno

Market day in Italy is not like the farmer’s markets we have in the U.S., they are much more substantial and provide shopping resources for the townsfolk that enable them fill their larders and closets for at least the entire week. The market in GVD is major league; it fills a large piazza, a parking area, and stalls span the length of several blocks on both sides of the piazza. When we arrived, we hurried past the produce vendors and headed straight for a café on the Piazza Cavour to have a cappuccino and a cornetto to get us started on our day. Refreshed, we began browsing the myriad of stalls lining the streets. There were dozens of stalls selling women’s clothing, shoes, purses, and intimate things, as well as numerous opportunities to purchase fashionable men’s clothing.

A very interesting phenomena in Italy is that both men and women wear t-shirts which are designed with wording in U.S. English. Things like “Cutie Pie” and “Hawaiian Surf Club,” and a multiplicity of other texts can be seen, and I’m wondering if these people have any clue as to what they’re wearing really says.

Porchetta Wagon and Slicing the Roast Pig

Anyway, we made it through the clothing stalls, unscathed, but when we got to the fabric area Vicki found some lace to used for window hangings and also purchased two purple shower curtains for uncertain use. [They are gorgeous, iridescent fuchsia and they will be used in a fabulous way!--V.]Then we rounded a corner off the piazza and found food heaven.

Cutting Parmigiano Reggiano

There were stalls and wagons selling the luscious porchetta, a wide variety of cheeses with a focus on pecorino, parmesan, and mozzarella—prosciutto, salami, salted cod and a whole stand selling tripe. We did some serious damage there, including fixings for a porchetta sandwiches that would be eaten later that day.

We finally made our way back to the produce stalls, which sell a huge variety of fruits and vegetables, all fresh, and almost all from Italy. This time of the year there are only cool weather vegetables available in Tuscany—we’ve seen many family gardens that are just getting started and most have only lettuce and other similar greens.

Produce Stall

For this reason, most of the produce in the markets comes from southern Italy and Sicily, not exactly local, but all the same, fresh and organic. Just looking at the fruits and vegetables at the stalls one can see that they aren’t the perfect, highly washed items like we see at Whole Foods. Potatoes look like they were just dug, apples have that “just off the tree” look, and there are little strawberries that look just picked. We stocked up on cherries, luscious melons, apples, pears, and oranges and headed back to the car carrying heavy sacks.

Porchetta Sandwich with
Melon and Cherries