Food & Wine Article - On Philadelphia

[Capaneus]

I think the point is being missed here: the article has to be read as a *rejoinder* to the original. She took Philadelphia to task for a number of inadequacies. Now she is, as far as a New Yorker knows how, apologizing (back off: I like NooYawkas). We need to look at the things she is crediting as answers to the points originally made - and street food didn't come into it.

Personally, whatever I felt about the actual assessments (and I don't generally believe in being agreeable), her central point is essentially one I thoroughly endorse: we may not be set up to entertain the upper financial, percentile - no-one besides a half-dozen metropolises worldwide really is. But we can feed the rest of us just beautifully.

[townsend]

Any food writer that did an article on Philly and proclaimed, "Wow, they have cheesesteaks there, AND THEY'RE REALLY GOOD! They made with meat and cheese and come on these rolls...."  would probably not be writing for a national publication.  The sandwich culture in Philly is a rightfully proud tradition, but an obvious one that is old news for our beloved Roast Pork and Cheesesteak. 

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I'd agree if the stated purpose of the article was "what is new in Philadelphia dining." But it is not. It is 1.) how does one identify a "great food city" and 2) is Philadelphia a great food city. That the article is in "Food & Wine" and not "Popular Grease" does not justify a writer for a national publication painting just half the picture.

Also a food writer who proclaimed, "Wow, they have cheesesteaks there, AND THEY'RE REALLY GOOD! They made with meat and cheese and come on these rolls...." should not even be writing for a local publication.

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Holly-just stating that it has already been established that we have cheesesteaks and it wouldn't contribute anything new to those OUTSIDE philly. Again, most of this article is old hat to us, full of omissions, and quite a cursory take on the food, people, and excellent products that make this city great.

[NaFairge]

our time has just not yet come. instead of feeling disappointed, we should be glad that we got a nod. anyone who writes travel pieces can't possibly hit ALL the spots in a three page spread. i am stoked that she put some effort into it at all.

it would have been great if she had talked to more chefs, though. get the low-down. who's doing what, etc.

what we really need is more of what april white wrote about a few months back in philly mag about the process of diners stuck in a rut and therefore holding back the chefs who are bleeding to cook differently but can't because everyone wants another burger or bowl of pasta or filet with mash....

and a large problem, as a close friend of mine says, is the lack of 'people density' in philly.

there just ain't enough peeps to go around.

[matthewj]

I disagree with the population density argument. Stephen star fills all of his restaurants everyday, that is a lot of covers. Sometimes I have heard of 45 minutes to an hour wait for melogranos, i am sure the food is good but 45 minutes standing on the corner good?. Yet I also here that Ansil and Gayle have trouble sometimes filling the dining room. That my friends is a shame and poor showing of support for two widely regarded chefs.

[MarketStEl]

Before I go any further, this article, for all its problems, deserves to be filed in that growing "Next Great City" folder. Odd how that phrase, which I'll bet the editors of National Geographic Traveler didn't give more than two seconds' thought to when they put together that issue, has become a sort of mantra and target on so many fronts.

Honestly,  I was thrilled that no mention of the "pheasant food of Philadelphia" was uttered.  As an "elitist",myself, one may think of Food and wine, Bonn appetit, Gourmet such are just fodder for the masses.  To shine a culinary light on a city without the mention of grease, cheese wit, and pork sandwiches and garlic is quite refreshing.  

I think I get your point, inasmuch as just about every article that tries to explain the city to outsiders usually covers these -- it's like barbecue in Kansas City -- but I think there's still a reason for it. Let's face it, even in New York, the things that unite everyone, rich and poor, are the common foods -- the egg cream, the droopy slice of pizza from "Ray's" that you fold to eat, the pastrami sandwich -- and even these can be done badly or superlatively (e.g., DiFara's pizza vs. "Ray's"). That said, I will allow that magazines like Gourmet and Food & Wine, and others in related areas of consumption, are not about uniting rich and poor, but distinguishing the wanna-be former from the latter. (Full disclosure: I have a subscription to Gourmet, I've consulted Epicurious for recipe ideas, and my Food & Wine subscription went the way of my American Express card several years ago.)

Which brings me to a question for you. If, as your comments suggest, these magazines are actually a form of escapist fantasy for the masses, what does the serious cook read, other than an industry trade publication? Cook's Illustrated? Saveur?

When an article is done about NY, no one is screaming about how the beloved pizza was left out, or no one in San Francisco is throwing sourdough rolls. 

As a collective food forum we should be happy that we just received some credibility that costs more than 1 dollar.

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one needs to look at the article from an outsiders perspective.  Realizing that this is not Philadelphia magazine, but a widely read publication that is distributed around the country if not the world.  Having an article more than a small blurb in the restaurant cities section is a big deal.  Whether or not one thinks the article is poorly written or does not cover enough of the cheese steak underworld, is moot.  Given the fact that many times we pine about not having enough press about the city,  hating the comparison to NYC.  Philadelphia finally receives a nice article, and the people that pooh, pooh it are the very one that should be happy it was written.  As an outsider you already know about Tony Lukes and Cheesesteaks.  Now the average reader that is not from Philadelphia and surrounding area will now know to come to Philadelphia to eat.  She also made a good couple of points. Extending the idea  that she found a lot of restaurants that she could put against many restaurant towns.   Contrary to popular belief people will travel for a great meal.  

If one is miffed about not seeing enough sloppy Joe's, or little pete's lust remember almost every article about Philadelphia has a  bobble head nodding in your direction.

You do make a valid point: We have often complained loudly that we don't get our props as a fine dining destination in the same league with San Francisco, Chicago, or even New York. Now here comes someone -- a New Yorker, no less -- who finally concedes that, all right, this really is a great dining destination, and here we go saying, "But where's the roast pork Italian?"

In which case, the problem lies not so much with the article or its writer as with the people who read it -- or what the editors of the magazines assume about them.

Now I need to go back through the archives of these mags to see if, when last they covered Chicago, they mentioned Vienna Beef hot dogs or the Italian beef sandwich.

As for not including the Fountain Room as a destination restuarant, I was a little suprised, but sometimes writer tend to focus on the independent restuarant before the hotel restuarant.

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Probably category bias: I suspect most food and travel writers consider hotel restaurants as a category inferior to stand-alone establishments, and thus don't quite know how to deal with exceptions to the rule like the Fountain.

Good point Matthewj on markets; everyone knows the Greenmarket in NYC, but is RTM really comparable?  Are the stalls full of farmers and producers of unique artisnal products?  Having an outlet like the RTM, and our location to Lancaster, Bucks, and Berks Counties should give us the kind of produce/products that makes others envious.  We live next to the 'Breadbasket of the East' that has some of the best farmland in the country, but the food dollars and market organization available in NY makes Philly a second choice for many farmers.  There are many chefs in Philly that go out of their way to get great local sources, but to make it economically feasible to pay the farmer for top quality one has to charge a premium, so looking for Five Star food at One Star prices is not very likely.  One usually doesn't get Five Star food without the accompanying Five Star experience and price (do they make sauce spoons in plastic?).

Our rich tradition (remember when Le Bus and Metropolitan were mind-blowing for the white bread set?) of making honest, soulful food as well as the haute cuisine of Le Bec and the Fountain at their best should be celebrated by us.  That the author is an outsider being guided around by local writers, which she clearly states, obviously influences the writing.  If you look at who she was with and where they went, it would give someone who is local a sense of deja vu.  We've already read this material.  But others haven't.  And if scratching the surface of the Philadelphia dining scene is worth noting in a national publication like Food and Wine, then we might be richer than we think.

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As for the markets: Remember that -- like Chicago -- this is a blue-collar town at heart still. There's money here, all right, but most of it decamped for suburban estates decades ago, and now it's busy turning Chester County farms into McMansions. The rest of us still live here, and still eat; somebody's got to feed us. "Artisanal" Kauffman's may not be, but honest it is, and it's local, too: just about everything they sell is from Lancaster County. There are enough of these stands at the RTM that I think the problem is strictly one on the high end (again), and there are the folks like Fair Food Farmstand, Green Valley Dairy, and Livengood's to fill in some of that hole.

Your point about five-star food at one-star prices is well taken, but is five-star food at three-star prices too much to ask? (And I'd still maintain that, within their given categories, there are plenty of places here turning out tip-top fare for little cash. Most of them, however, are sandwich shops of the kind the Hungry Detective visited on his swing through Philly.)

I think the point is being missed here: the article has to be read as a *rejoinder* to the original. She took Philadelphia to task for a number of inadequacies. Now she is, as far as a New Yorker knows how, apologizing (back off: I like NooYawkas). We need to look at the things she is crediting as answers to the points originally made - and street food didn't come into it.

Personally, whatever I felt about the actual assessments (and I don't generally believe in being agreeable), her central point is essentially one I thoroughly endorse: we may not be set up to entertain the upper financial, percentile - no-one besides a half-dozen metropolises worldwide really is. But we can feed the rest of us just beautifully.

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Actually, I think we're talking about the top quartile in this argument: "the rest of us" are eating at Applebee's, Red Lobster and Ruby Tuesday.

Edited to add: P.S., confidential to matthewj: Did you ever see my PM of several months back? I can't guarantee anything, but there are still some holes in the August Postscript I have to fill.

Edited May 12, 2007 by MarketStEl (log)

[matthewj]

Thank you ... thank you for the well written point. You have made the most sense thus far.

As far as magazine that I read is varied. A lot of the mainstream magazines are just that. A lot of advertising and little else. I tend to read Gastronomica, Waitrose food, Australian Food and wine, Autstralian Gourmet Traveller. Sometimes Wine Spectator. I even pick up CITY, and some fashion magazine because sometimes they have interesting takes on food. GQ's Alan Richman is one of the best, as weli as John Mariani.

The majority of the foreign magazines, although pricey, deliver good article that do not seem to focus in on the same salad, grilling technique, and barbeque's sauce.

Although Food and Wine, Gourmet, Bonn appetit, and Sauveur have their moments, a lot of times they are hit and miss. Saveur used to be a lot better. A little more in depth articles and interesting as well. Lately I feel that they have lost there focus, and have a more mainstream audience. Cooks is a defining magazine that is great for everyone. It teaches they best way how to make everything. Food arts and Art culinaire, Restaurants and Hospitality, and Restuarant News, are the other professional magazines that I read. I generally can't wait for the La tTimes food section as well as SF Chronicles articles. They seem to get it more about food. New york times lately has been hit are miss.

Edited May 12, 2007 by matthewj (log)

[philadining]

It may be too late to avoid belaboring the point, but I just wanted to clarify: personally I wasn't so concerned about the omissions per se, any one article can't cover everything, EXCEPT, when those omissions were specifically stated as a shortcoming of the city.

It's one thing to not cover the Reading Terminal Market, seasonal markets, etc, another thing altogether to explicitly state that DiBrunos is all we've got.

It's one thing to not mention the lab equipment at LaCroix and Snackbar, Marigold, etc, another thing to say that there are no maverick chefs.

I actually like the overall drift of the article, that Philadelphia is attractive in unexpected ways. It's just unfortunate that the conclusion came along with promoting some misperceptions.

Edited May 12, 2007 by philadining (log)

[Alcibiades]

Well said, P.

[MarketStEl]

Over on the Food Traditions & Culture board, a denizen of Mouseworld has started a discussion wondering "What makes a place a great food city?" by starting with a lament that Orlando isn't and will probably never be, a state of affairs for which Disney is to blame, apparently.

One of the followup posters, Magictofu, posited a formula that I think has much to recommend it and which Ms. Cowin might find useful in explaining why Philadelphia is a great food city despite coming up short (in her estimation) on most of her seven criteria:

In North America, it seems, it is not the amount of people with a decent budget that makes a city culinary attractive. My own little theory can be sumarized through this simple equation:

Great culinary city = f(Immigrantation [sic]) + f(large income differential) + f(urban neighborhoods)

This means that a city with a lot of immigrants, large income differential between the rich and the poors (as opposed to simply have rich people; here the smaller the middle class the better) and the more urban neighborhoods (as opposed to business districts and suburbs) will generally have a lot to offer in terms of food quality and culinary diversity. Immigrants often brings new products or a taste for non-industrial food, poor people will be willing to spend hours behind a stove if a rich person pays them and urban neighborhoods will simply bring immigrants, poor people and richer ones together.

Philly definitely scores high on the last two factors, and has been playing catchup lately on the first one.

What do you all think of this hypothesis? I think it has more than a little merit.

[Vadouvan]

our time has just not yet come. instead of feeling disappointed, we should be glad that we got a nod. anyone who writes travel pieces can't possibly hit ALL the spots in a three page spread. i am stoked that she put some effort into it at all.

it would have been great if she had talked to more chefs, though. get the low-down. who's doing what, etc.

what we really need is more of what april white wrote about a few months back in philly mag about the process of diners stuck in a rut and therefore holding back the chefs who are bleeding to cook differently but can't because everyone wants another burger or bowl of pasta or filet with mash....

This is a great point. Ultimately the article was positive and we should just be happy that it was not a slam. She did concede that there are more places she wants to try in Philly as opposed to NYC which probably isnt true but still illustrates an attempt at being contrite regarding her previous opinion.

Regarding how Dibruno's is "all we have" or how "it has to be everything to everyone", in fact those two statements are partially true. In most other cities there are several options for those kinds of stores, we have dibruno's and whole foods, other cities may have Dean and Deluca competing with Fairway, Citarella,Agata and Valentina,Zabars, Balducci's and so on.

Philadelphia cannot however support all those places. The cost of opening Dibruno brothers also forces it to sell a lot of overpriced and borderline adequate prepared foods thus those shopping for specialty ingredients have to avoid it between 11.30am and 2 pm since the lunch crowds are crazy.

Sure we do have farmers markets but most of them are completely overpriced and even the amish deceptively sell products that are procured through standard distribution channels as opposed to farms but we automatically make the connection becuase our brains mentally translate thier outfits into intergrity of authenticity which is a complete fabrication half the time.

Organic or not, there suimply is no reason but greed for any apple to cost $1.50.

I disagree with the population density argument. Stephen star fills all of his restaurants everyday, that is a lot of covers. Sometimes I have heard of 45 minutes to an hour wait for melogranos, i am sure the food is good but 45 minutes standing on the corner good?. Yet I also here that Ansil and Gayle have trouble sometimes filling the dining room. That my friends is a shame and poor showing of support for two widely regarded chefs.

Matt

Starr restaurants arent full all the time, Washington square for one has as much mental stimulation as watching a ball of tumbleweed roll by in the New Mexico desert.

Regarding Ansil and Gayle, part of the reason both arent as full as they would like to be is that both chose the wrong way to control public perception of who they are and what they do.

In Gayle's case the menu structure is silly. It uses cryptic language that makes no sense such that even well versed food knowledgable people could read the menu but have no clue what the dish actually means. Translation they keep walking.

Literal creativity may be "fun" to some but using the term risotto and serving anything deep fried is simply asking for abuse. What does chicken "purple and green" mean ?

Ansill also is percieved as a place that specializes in "organ meats" and such. In this case it isnt completely true but in fact the menu is peppered with enough offal type stuff that public perception focuses on the lowest common denominator.

At the end of the day, it was a good article and there is much work to be done.

Cheese steaks and pork sandwiches have been discussed ad-nauseum when it comes to Philly articles. I dont see the omission as a problem.

[Alcibiades]

I agree with V that the use of language on the menu at Gayle is a little weird, though a diner wouldn't necessarily have a chance to notice if he/she never walks in the door. I think a bigger problem Gayle (and to a lesser extent, Ansill, though their crowd is a little more local) has is its location. The Lexus and BMW crowd doesn't want to drive down to South St. on a Saturday night and drive around for 2 hours looking for parking. It's a shame because I think their food is terrfic.

[Vadouvan]

I agree with V that the use of language on the menu at Gayle is a little weird, though a diner wouldn't necessarily have a chance to notice if he/she never walks in the door

Website, you dont have to walk by the restaurant.

http://www.gaylephiladelphia.com/

Even the case can be made that the omission of cooking method is a problem for me.

I would order crisp sweetbreads but not stewed or poached.

Having to ask servers twenty questions just makes meals far too much work and time for me.

Just an opinion.

[MarketStEl]

Regarding how Dibruno's is "all we have" or how "it has to be everything to everyone", in fact those two statements are partially true. In most other cities there are several options for those kinds of stores, we have dibruno's and whole foods, other cities may have Dean and Deluca competing with Fairway, Citarella,Agata and Valentina,Zabars, Balducci's and so on.

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Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all of the other places you mention -- except for Dean and DeLuca, which has 14 outlets in five markets, including my hometown -- in New York, and only in New York?

I can think of only a few other places in the US where there are enough people with the money, the sophistication and the desire to support multiple such stores. Perhaps San Francisco, which is one of the most affluent large cities in the US. Definitely LA. Maybe Chicago, though pace Grant Achatz, I think most Chicagoans don't eat on such a rarefied plane. After these three, where? (Dallas/Fort Worth? Houston? Both have the money, but do they have the food culture? Any others?)

Dean & DeLuca describes their Leawood store as bringing something to Kansas City that it's never had before, and I think they're right. KC is not atypical as moderately large US metros go, and I think it probably shares this attribute with several larger areas too. (Though KC did have a very good specialty food shop and a nationally known and respected high-end grocery chain in the years I grew up there. Wolferman's* was done in by the Bon Vivant vichyssoise disaster, and I think the owner of The Country Store -- which specialized in fine foods from Europe -- simply retired.)

Still, "all we've got," from where I sit, is probably pretty damned good when compared with other places about our size.

*The company was revived about a decade ago as a purveyor of high-quality English muffins; they've expanded their product line into related baked goods. I've had them, and they are definitely, in the words of their longtime slogan, "Good Things to Eat."

[mrbigjas]

on such a rarefied plane.  After these three, where?  (Dallas/Fort Worth? Houston? Both have the money, but do they have the food culture?  Any others?)

dallas has central market, aka the greatest supermarket ever (including wegmans).

KC is not atypical as moderately large US metros go

(snipped for brevity)

Still, "all we've got," from where I sit, is probably pretty damned good when compared with other places about our size.

wait, you're from kansas city? why have you never mentioned this before?

hahaha

i don't think your comparison holds: a midwestern city with under 500K population isn't really analogous to a large city in the northeast corridor with three times that many people. i mean, it's just... not.

re the article, i like that she stepped beyond the cheesesteak/pork sandwich that seems to dominate every article. the interesting thing to me is that even without that, there was so much else left out of it. that says there's a lot going on here, and i'm pretty happy about that.

[Vadouvan]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all of the other places you mention -- except for Dean and DeLuca, which has 14 outlets in five markets, including my hometown -- in New York, and only in New York?

That is simultaneously irrelevant and exactly the point.

Dana Cowin is in New York and thus her frame of reference is in New York.

Basically everything revolves around New York.

Magazine articles, James Beard Foundation, Conde Nast and all the other magazine owners,Food Network, Food in America is about NEW YORK.

If you are not New York, you need a trump card (no pun intended)

Chicago has Grant Achatz, Rick Bayless, Tramonto and Gand, Trotter, Paul kahan, Homaru Cantu, Graham Eliot Bowles........I could go on and on.

Napa and California has better produce, Thomas keller, David Kinch, Michael Ciramusti, Michael Mina, Gary Danko, Alice Waters,Ludovic Lefebvre, Paul Bertolli, Nancy Silverton....and the list goes on.

Philadelphia Has Georges Perrier and Marc Vetri.......done.

There isnt any other chef nationaly known in the food community.

Basically every city in America has to prove to New York that it is worthy.

I dont like it any more than you do but that is the deal.

Philadelphia and Pa as a whole ARE underrated.

You just have to look under the surface.

The effing French Laundry was buying it's smoked salmon from a guy in Doylestown and actually had by specific name on the menu "BLUE MOON ACRES MEZZA ARUGULA" which i believe is buckingham in freaking Bucks County.

Reading terminal market is known worldwide and is on the list of famed markets that have pictures of each other, if you go to the Borough market in London, you will see a picture of RTM, aint no place in NYC on the leeeest....

Do you know anyone who has ever won a Beard award who did not cook the Beard trustees a free dinner ?

It's Quid-pro-quo, it's bullshit.

We dont need as a city to suck up to that, we just need to continue to quietly evolve.

Declaring Philadelphia the next great food city is actually the worst case scenario as opposed to a quiet revolution because what will happen is the real estate owners will price the independent creative restaurants that might actually open out of the market and you will continue to get BYO's and Starr restaurants.

Do we need another Perrier restaurant 4 blocks from Brasserie Perrier ?

Do we need another Starr restaurant 1 block from Barclay prime ?

Maybe, maybe not but we sure are getting both.

The only issue I take with Dana Cowin's article is the whole Maverick Chef thing.

I like her very much by the way and I certainly understand her point but the qualification of maverick chefs as those using lab equipment and Alginates seems a bit muted to me.

The fact is that the word "Maverick" refers to independent thought and uniqueness and not the evolution or repeckaging of the specific ideas of others.

While the case that cooking Sous-vide has become mainstream can be made and has been used for years, the specific use of Sodium Alginate and Calcium Chloride for encapsulation and spherefication is uniquely a Ferran Adria-El Bulli concoction and anyone in NY or Chicago who uses alginates to make anything is simply COPYING the Adria-ElBulli creations.

Nothing about that makes any chef in the United States a Maverick as specific instructions can be found in the El Bulli cookbook.

At the end of the day the real question is does it taste better ?

In most cases it doesnt even taste as good.

Edited May 14, 2007 by Vadouvan (log)

[matthewj]

I disagree with you V. Ansils and Gayle maybe a little dfferent, but I believe that they are very approachable. As for as the arguement of parking. It is difficult to park anwhere in the city, maybe they should consider valet? I believe that they have trouble keeping in competion with BYOB's eveyday of the week except Friday and Saturday.

I agree with you about the produce and such. If he is getting salmon from Doylestown, then maybe it is Brown gold. Blue moon farm is in Buckingham on 313, right next to buckingham elementry school. It is shame that not enough people use the bounty that is within the state lines.

As for the reading terminal, do you think politics of the convention bureau keep a lot of artisans at bay? I don't know?

[Vadouvan]

Matt you probably are correct re: location.

Parking is a problem but that assumes that most people are driving.

Remember what may be approachable to you or I isnt to the general population.

In fact they are approachable the issue is communication and controlling perception.

[MarketStEl]

As for the reading terminal, do you think politics of the convention bureau keep a lot of artisans at bay?  I don't know?

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Pardon me for second-guessing Paul here, but I think one of the things he tries to do at the RTM is to maintain a wide mix of vendors and purveyors -- and to hold onto market share in the face of competition from places like Whole Foods, the Super Fresh and -- yes -- 9th Street. (Paul has told me that he sees all of these places as the competition. He has had a hard time convincing some of the merchants that this is the case -- some think the RTM's uniqueness makes them less interchangeable -- but he is more right than not.)

People will pay more for what many RTM merchants offer because they recognize these merchants offer better quality, but too heavy a reliance on artisanal boutique stuff and the management runs the risk of losing the bulk of the shoppers you find clogging the aisles at Iovine's. Recall my surprise at finding out that most of what Wegmans sold costs no more than you'd pay at any other supermarket? Recall the post in response to my surprise explaining why? There are probably many more people like me out there who don't shop Wegmans because of what they know about the place, and they'd be equally surprised if they did. The RTM would soon gain a similar rep if everyone there sold what Fair Food and Livengood's sold, and those people might not come there anymore even though Iovine's still charges what they always have.

Edited to add; As far as I can tell, the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority doesn't interfere much with the Reading Terminal Market Corporation's operations.

Edited May 15, 2007 by MarketStEl (log)

[matthewj]

Good point, but I was thinking more along the market at the warf at the embarcadaro. I was there when it was a an outside market. Packed. I was there when they has the inside market. Packed. There was a line for hog Island oyster that was basically aroun the pier.

[mrbigjas]

Blue moon farm is in Buckingham on 313, right next to buckingham elementry school.  It is shame that not enough people use the bounty that is within the state lines. 

i don't know why i feel compelled to do this every time it's mentioned, but for anyone looking, blue moon acres microgreens are available at sue's produce, 18th & sansom.

Edited May 15, 2007 by mrbigjas (log)

[townsend]

MSt.El,

I think boutique and artisnal are two different things...boutique meaning limited use (specialty items, obscure) and artisnal meaning made or grown by artisans (of which we have many, fortunately). The RTM is run as a 'retail outlet' with a mix of vendors to support the public need, which is great. I frequent Downtown cheese professionally and personally weekly, I can find the best cookbooks around the corner (thanks Jill), and can get a number of other unique products (fresh rabbit, squab). Matthewj brought up a good point re:Greenmarket. If the producers from Lancaster area came here instead of NYC, we would enjoy a greater selection of what is grown here. In no way am I denigrating the RTM, its just that there is so much more out there. If I want to buy Eckerton Hill Farm tomatoes from Kutztown, I have two choices: go to the Greenmarket or call my Baldor rep. in the Bronx! (Baldor, by the way, supplies a number of Wegmans with produce) When I used Branch Creek Farm in Bucks County for organics, Mark would call me with last chance offers to buy overstock before the bumber crop was sold off to wholesalers in NYC! (Mark and Judy Dornstreich are the epitome of local organic farming..) Vadouvan also mentions a good point; wholesale is wholesale, no matter who is buying. So yes, they are know for a certain level of quality, but they are sourcing almost all of the products from the same food wholesale distribution system as Weg, Superfresh, Italian M. etc. The exception is Iovine's with their contract growers. I don't know what they grow specifically, but that is a great way to get the quality you want. I love Fair Food (Jamison Lamb is arguably the best in the Country) and am chasing E. Livengood from market to market, but what about the rest of what is offered in PA? Where is their home in Philly? The market would suffer if it became less competitive, however. The public is using it as a shopping outlet, not as a repository for unique artisnal products. I just want to point out the disconnect between what else is available and what is offered at the market.

editted to add: Having these products available to the public would increase awareness of what we have, the costs involved to support artisans, and the cost of not doing so....

Edited May 15, 2007 by townsend (log)

[MarketStEl]

Thank you for a thoughtful response, townsend. It is a question of striking the right balance, isn't it?

Your bringing up Downtown Cheese in this context is illustrative. Even though this is less the case now than it was before DiBruno's upgraded its offerings, there are still cheeses that Downtown carries but DiBruno's does not, and the quality and variety of Downtown's offerings are, as they always have been, top-notch. Certainly when it comes to cheese -- the food on which DiBruno's built its reputation -- DiBruno's is far from "all we've got." Even Salumeria in the RTM and Claudio's on 9th Street offer a decent selection, though they don't have the more exotic varieties that DiBruno's, Downtown and Whole Foods carry. (Claudio's, however, does make its own fresh mozzarella right on the premises, something no other specialty cheesemonger I know in town does.)

And certainly the presence of DiBruno's and Fante's on 9th Street haven't diminished the Italian Market's reputation as a bargain hunter's paradise. The specialty butchers there, having been part of the market for decades, also don't have that kind of an impact on its rep.

Is there room in the RTM for more artisanal producers from the surrounding region? Physically speaking, there is; the seating area near Fair Food used to house a produce market (the weakest of the three, so it's no surprise it went out of business) and hosts several independent producers and entrepreneurs every Saturday, so if Paul wanted to experiment with having one or more of those great farms in Lancaster or Bucks set up a stand on a weekend, this would be the place to do it. This is where the politics would come into play. Running a market composed of dozens of independent merchants is like managing a shopping mall; one of Paul's strengths is that he understands this. The problem with managing a shopping mall is that if you have too many of one type of store, all the stores of that type suffer. At the RTM, it may be compounded by the feelings some of the merchants -- who have their own association, don't forget; shopping mall retailers often don't these days -- may have about exclusivity or internal competition. Together these make adding more artisans a trickier process than it otherwise might be.

But the obstacles aren't insurmountable. I know Paul keeps abreast of discussions such as these. Consider this a suggestion whispered in your ear, Paul; I don't think it contradicts what I said above.

Edited May 15, 2007 by MarketStEl (log)