Vienna's Naschmarket

Naschmarkt
Wienzeile
4th District

I haven't counted them, but there must
be more than a hundred stalls,
offering fresh vegetables,
fresh fruits and dried fruits,
nuts, seeds,
teasanes and teas,
bakery goods, meat, fish,
spices from all over the world,
pickles galore at one stand
and so many varieties of vinegars at another,
you may end up with such a bad case
of indecisiveness,
you'll spend the rest of the day
right there.
Put.
Gasping for air.

No problem,
parallel to the market
runs a miles long row
of food joints,
offering breakfast to night cap,
sushi to pizza
and anything in between
you could ever imagine
wanting to eat,
with Turkish coffee or cappuccino
to top it all off,
while pondering your vinegar choices
or your next move.


Go there early in the morning,
unless you want to seriously fleamarket
at the Kettenbrücke (Chain Bridge) end
of this Viennese bazaar happening
on Saturday mornings,
all the while
the river Wien
flowing right there
under your tired feet.

Autumn Bounty
"No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
as I have seen in one autumnal face"
John Donne

Figs
"The proper way to eat a fig, in society,
Is to split it in four, holding it by the stump,
And open it, so that it is a glittering,
rosy, moist, honied,
heavy-petalled four-petalled flower."
*
D.H. Lawrence,
"Figs"

Parmiggiano Reggiano!
36 mesi di stagionatura!
Prodotto col latte della mungitura
della sera “affiorato e maturato”!

Chili! Peppers! Artichokes!
The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior ...
*
Pablo Neruda,
"Ode to the Artichoke"

"the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars."
*
Pablo Neruda,
"Ode To Tomatoes"

Eggplants!
"Olive oil would simply be lost without you."
*
Persis M. Karim,
"Ode to the eggplant"

Grapes
"Bring me wine, but wine which never grew
In the belly of the grape,
Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through
Under the Andes to the Cape,
Suffer no savor of the earth to scape."
*
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
"Bacchus"

Persimmons
"We were so young. The persimmons
hung just out of reach."
*
Jennifer Mackenzie,
"Persimmons"

*

To visit other Viennese markets
with Merisi,
click here,
please.

.


First published
October 2007