market rates
by the main shopper
Berlin, Germany
A far cry from the watch-where-you-step wet markets and touristy colourful night markets of Asia, are the markets of Berlin.
We sampled our second today, will be returning to the first again tomorrow, yet another on Monday and even more by the time we leave, as well as a far less interesting supermarket, where we will be unable to buy cinnamon or cumin, brown rice or buckwheat, peanut butter or baked beans (yes, we were looking for an emergency stash of tinned beans). But we found quark and bottled cherries – a delicious reminder to buy what is available locally (even if not in season <wink>)
Speaking of local….and fresh….let me take you to one of the Turkish Markets. We’ll need to take a tram to the end of the line and then switch to the U-bahn (underground train), which we’ll ride for another twenty minutes or so.
When we emerge from the station we’ll be greeted by cries of, “Lecker lecker lecker” and a frantic hustle as stall-holders try to make last tasty tasty tasty sales of the day. In an hour the market will be all packed away for another week. I spy a row of rounded mounds hunched around a table. Each of the humps covered in Arab-inspired dress, complete with flowing headscarves, is reaching out for a red plastic bag given in exchange for their “ein euro”. I figure if ten Turkish ladies think this is a bargain I’ll be in too, and I hand over my ein euro. So I find myself with a big bursting bag of cucumbers for NZ$2.50. I *could* stuff more in, but it already feels like bargain enough. I pay no more for any of our other purchases – two boxes of grapes (yes, that’s 50 cents a box), a large tray of crunchy sweet red peppers, a tray of cherry tomatoes, a couple of dozen zucchini, half as many eggplants and a fresh ginger root.
We congregate back at the meeting point – you see, we’d gone with others from the house where we’re staying and they all make similar purchases to us. While we wait for the last stragglers to join us, desperate-not-to-waste-anything-vendors start dumping free produce on our pile – 30kg of potatoes, bunches of spring onions, more red peppers, a tray of mangoes, cabbages, lettuces, a box full of mint. In the end we have to refuse, and start giving away excess to passersby. We also have to rationalise, cutting off rotten bits there on the street, sorting out the bad from the good, so that we can manage to stagger home with the haul.
Different again are the flea markets and there are plenty of them across town. Kiwi Readers, take note. These are not the grotty markets that focus more on the flea part of their name like in NZ. These ones have crafty stalls full of refashioned clothing, homemade organic jams, handmade wooden toys, freshly squeezed orange juice, clothing imported from the markets of Asia (we know – we saw it there!), secondhand bicycles, antiques….and hundreds of garage sale type stalls with pre-loved items. OK so these stalls were a bit FLEA-market-ish, but it’s here that we found our treasures. A carved wooden chopping board, the best bread knife we’ve ever used with a lovely wooden handle, a bundle of four glasses with a cow pattern, a white handled ladle with blue flowers adorning it – each of these for fifty euro cents. In the big spending category (that would be the handsome sum of six euros each) we found a cast iron wok-cum-pot with wooden handles and a stand so you can light a fire under it if you want to, as well as the biggest pot you ever set your eyes on (unless you remember these ones from Kampot). 
It has a super-super thick base and would be ideal for stewing twenty kilos of apples or making commercial batches of chutney. I know our family is big, but it’s not *that* big, which means this pot is actually too big for everyday use (you shoulda seen Rob’s face when I came home with it!!), BUT it was such a bargain, I entertained visions of taking it back to NZ with me, and practically speaking, it was the only pot that even approached “big enough for us”. So I carried it home on my head, Cambodian-style. We have used – and I suspect we will use – it every day so far.
Another permanent flea market, a tidily arranged (but full of junk) place, provided us with a few more luxuries – a big woollen blanket for picnics and for keeping our cooking pot hot, a spanner, pliers, a wicker basket, a pepper grinder, a no-longer-loved naked doll and an embroidered tablecloth for Jgirl14 to turn into a dolly dress and blanket for her baby sister’s birthday.
This market even had a camping toilet…and it just so happens that we are in the market for one…..especially one that only costs 20 euros, but based on my highly non-specific dimension recall (“It’s about *this* big,” said whilst waving hands indiscriminately around) consensus was that it would not be big enough. Too bad.
It’s not that I’m against buying new per se, it’s just that I like to reuse if at all possible. Or support little old ladies who crochet dischcloths. And we’ve been able to, with great satisfaction.
Now I just have to decide whether to try to bring home the big amazing pot or the long-dreamed-for-cast-iron. <wink>
Tags: craft, food, money, numbers, postcard: Germany
rayres
Are these markets there permanently, every day? Every weekend? I must take note of them 🙂
Mauerpark Markt runs on Sundays (not sure about during the winter).
Some Turkish markets are fairly permanent (there was one near a train stop, but I don’t remember which!), but this one just ran Saturday mornings and (I tink) Tuesday afternoons. Not too helpful eh.