Next week (June 18-23) marks the Reading Terminal Market‘s Renovations Dedication Week. The public is invited to join the Market as it celebrates the completion of its recent renovations with a week of special events (all of which are free) celebrating the Market and its place in Philadelphia’s vibrant food scene. To kick it all off, there will be a ribbon cutting and unveiling of a Market History Exhibit on Monday, June 18th at 10:00am in the newly created Rick Nichols Room (see the entire schedule of Dedication Week events below). So who else did we ask to write an ode to the beloved market? Well, none other than COOK’s dear friend, Rick Nichols himself.
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Thirty-four years ago there was a bit of Hunger Games aspect to our weekly shopping treks to Reading Terminal Market. We lived in a third-floor walk-up loft on the corner of Third and Cherry, part of the first wave post-industrial types trickling into Old City. And, well, we soon realized that we had to eat.
No grocery stores there yet. (Though a corner grocer moved in eventually, I think on Bread Street, or Quarry.) No supermarkets. Hadn’t been a need. But 10 blocks away there was the Reading Market, shabby and beaten down, something of a no-man’s land. That gave it, frankly, a touch of romance (if you were young enough, and pushing the urban envelope). So we’d hike over there, load our brown-paper shopping bags to the brim, and hike back, the twine handles slowly gouging a grove in our fingers: You had to suffer for your supper.
They’ve asked me to say for a few words about the Grand Old Lady next week. It’s celebrating its 120th anniversary, and they’re dedicating a bunch of upgrades — some of them still unfinished — including something I hadn’t counted on when I was shuffling home on the bluestone sidewalks 34 years ago. There’s going to be a new Rick Nichols Room, a space for small meetings and celebrations and public talks, the centerpiece of which will be a handsome series of historical panels tracking the life and times of public markets in the city from Penn’s day right up to a photo of President Obama buying an apple or an ice cream cone or something. Talk about times changing!
Why me? Well, maybe the first 12 candidates turned it down. Or they think I’ll be an easy mark to fund a new wing. But what the exhibit will say is that — in my long career writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer — I was a fierce champion of the place (I once called it “the defiantly beating heart of old, original Philadelphia.”), that I fought to keep its doors open when construction for the new convention center threatened its survival, and that I reveled in its resilience and vitality, showing it off to chefs from around the country (Thomas Keller and Michel Richard, among them) and food thinkers (Michael Pollan, among them). And whatever other reasons there might be, those are true ones, and of course, I was — and am — honored to the bone.
The market went on a wild ride the last few decades. (I’d been there as a child in the 1950s, but my only genuine memory is the oniony scent of the hoagies marinating in the bag while my mother took us by bus to visit our grandparents in the Northeast.) The place was depopulating by the 70s, public markets and cities themselves losing ground to the suburbs, and their efficient new supermarkets. A particularly negligent landlord would soon drive off another round of merchants. Rain streamed through the ceiling, entire sections went dark. But you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s (almost) gone. Amish merchants were piped on board. And Korean produce venders. And following the same dynamic as the revived artisan food movement, the market found itself with new fan base even as it seemed to be on its death bed. (The parallel with renewed craft brewing? Yards poked its head up in Kensington, the same year that Philly’s last major industrial brewery shut its doors. Bread baking? Just when the white-bread Wonders of the world were about to snuff the last of corner bakeries and Old World sourdoughs, Metropolitan popped up. And so on. Breyers out, Capogiro in. Whitman Samplers out, John & Kira’s in. Farmers uncool, farms — and even urban ones — suddenly chic.)
So what can I say about this next-generation Reading Market, ready to show off $3 million of fresh renovations? What to say with not one but two Whole Foods nearby? With dozens of weekly farmers markets circling, their spring dandelion pristine, the cheeses exquisite, the rhubarb suitable for framing, and priced like fine art? Well, the market will soon have a made-on-premises sheep’s milk cheese maker, a German beer and sausage stand; sparkling, new rest rooms (you can hear the occasional complaint that they’re too bright and cleaned up) , and an updated privately owned demo kitchen, Cucina at the Market. Among other new venders and stalls.
I’m not quite sure about my remarks yet. But I plan to sweat over them until 10 a.m., Monday morning — June 18 — when I get my three minutes. That’s when they cut the ribbon for The Room and unveil the historical exhibit. There are other events each day all week, most at noon and at 5 p.m., featuring bloggers and chocolate merchants and ice cream makers, and some pretty impressive local chefs, including the pioneering Steve Poses and Aliza Green, and Fork’s estimable Terry Feury and, not least, my pal Sal Vetri, the father of the famous Marc. (On the occasional Friday, I put on my white chef’s jacket and prep for Sal when he cooks the staff meal at Amis.)
I think I want to say Reading Terminal Market has been an inspiration. That it is the survivor. That it is still there 120 years later, while so much of the old city is going or gone. It is a touchstone. It is still the beating heart. That it is what makes Philadelphia Philadelphia. I don’t need to say it, but I will: Everyone is welcome, and they know it. They come for filet mignon and smoked turkey wings. It’s not a no-man’s land anymore, it’s an Everybody’s Land.
And yes, the crop of weekly farm markets — in Society Hill and Rittenhouse Square and South Philly — are good and great. And SuperFresh and Whole Foods have better parking and longer hours. But they have learned at the feet of the likes of the Reading Market — how to keep the aisle displays low for better eye contract, and the fruit stacked high. And there are some things they haven’t mastered — creating the grid of “avenues,” for instance, that runs you into a neighbor (colleague, school chum) and turns commerce into communion.
And I think I want to say, in conclusion, that I’m immensely grateful for the handles on the new cloth shopping bags: They don’t cut those grooves in my aging fingers.
-Rick Nichols
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Dedication Week ~ Calendar of Events
Monday, June 18TH
12 Noon ~ Pennsylvania is for Chocolate Lovers ~ Michael Holahan, PA General Store
Philly Meets the Bayou ~ Bill Beck, Beck’s Cajun Café
5pm ~ At Home with Steve Poses
Tuesday, June 19TH
12 Noon ~ Cooking with Sal ~ Sal Vetri & Brad Spence, Amis Restaurant
5pm ~ How the Local Food Movement Got its Start ~ Ann Karlen, Bob Pierson,
Nicky Uy, & Judy Wicks
Wednesday, June 20TH
12 Noon ~ Dipping into Philly’s Ice Cream Roots ~ Bassetts Ice Cream & The Berley Bros
5pm ~ Food Blogger Panel ~ Michael Klein aka philly.com/theinsider
Claire Batten aka phillyfoodlovers.com ~ Kaitlin Lunny aka icancookthat.org
Bob Libkind aka robertsmarketreport.blogspot.com
Thursday, June 21ST
12 Noon ~ What a Friend We Have in Cheeses ~ Eran Wajswol, Valley Shepherd Creamery
5pm ~ Making Serious Dough ~ Wendy Born & James Barrett, Metropolitan Bakery
Friday, June 22ND
12 Noon ~ Seafood Made Easy ~ Ellen Yin & Terence Feury, Fork Restaurant
5pm ~ Made in Germany ~ Doug Hager & Jeremy Nolen, Wursthaus Schmitz
Saturday, June 23RD
12 Noon ~ From the Market Aisles to Your Plate ~ Aliza Green & Anna Florio,
La Cucina at the Market
*All events take place at The Rick Nichols Room and are free and open to the public.
