Part 2: Pike Place Market
One of my earliest experiences in Seattle food was wandering around Pike Place Market on a bitterly cold winter day, spending three hours or so having a meandering lunch among the many various foods on offer and I've been going back for more ever since. Some of the shops have changed, but almost every one distributes free samples or tastings or has small-sized things to purchase for very small prices. It being a tourist attraction, summer weekends are nuts at the Market, but if you're not in a hurry it's no big deal and if you are in a hurry there are all sorts of little back-passageways and side-doors that you can use as shortcuts to bypass the crowds of wandering out-of-towners wishing they had something so delicious much closer to home. This will not be an exhaustive list of the things one can eat at the market, but, instead, a shameless tempting of the tastebuds and imagination of you readers to go have a gastronomic adventure of your own.
You'll enter the market from a different corner depending on where you manage to find parking in the Saturday parking melee. On this particular visit, we were coming from near the park overlooking Elliot Bay, in which there has recently appeared a man in posession of a corn-roasting machine. Not just a glorified BBQ, the giant, stainless-steel, blast-furnace-like contraption can roast several hundred ears at once to perfection. If you're from or have been to the midwest in late summer, you'll understand the glorious explosion of sweet and savory juiciness that is a freshly-roasted ear of corn, painted with butter and sprinkled with salt and pepper (or completely naked - also delicious!) And the corn is now local. So get one (with several napkins for the juice that will dribble down your chin) and resist the temptation to get another because there's lots more to come.
It's a good thing to have something in your stomach before you go wandering up the aisle of stalls selling fruit and jams and fish and beef jerky and honey and more fish and asparagus and the biggest morel I've ever seen and more fish. Buy some fruit. It's delicious. Right now the raspberries are amazing despite the cold wet spring putting off the season for about a month. The day we were there one of the greengrocers was also selling the biggest morel I've ever seen and huge bunches of asparagus.
And just when you thought you reached the other end of the market you find that the fish-throwers not only throw fish but also give out samples of cured salmon - either the hot-smoked stuff that is juicy and incredibly sweet and not fishy at all or the cold-smoked "belly strips" that are basically like salmon prosciutto and can be used either cubed for a salad or quiche or shaved and layered on top of a fillet of fresh fish under the broiler so the oily belly strips get crispy and keep the fillet juicy.Step next door to Don & Joe's Meats and grab a landjäger "German walking sausage" to eat while you watch the guys behind the counter wrestle with huge slabs of meat in pursuit of the perfect cut, which is all I've ever received from them. You'll also have to mull over the inevitable comparisons between the slightly spicy and tangy landjäger and the various cured salmons so head to Marketspice while you're chewing for a small cup of their house-blend tea (I prefer it iced, which you get in the summer.) And then (finally?) to the mini-donut stand to grab a half-dozen tiny, crispy, steaming, cinnamon-sugar donuts that always disappear faster than would seem to be permitted by the laws of physics. And then, if you really have time on your hands and still miraculously have room in your stomach, go into De Laurenti, the gourmet food store at the corner of Pike and First. This time my parents and I went in to taste olive oils (of which about 20 open bottles sit, for such a purpose, at the top of the stairs the the store's second level.) But olive oil is due a more comprehensive discussion later. If you're in the mood, you can also taste any of the many cheeses and they usually have another special tasting of something - the day in question it happened to be chocolate.
There are many other delicious things to be had on a stroll through the market, such as cheesecake truffles, steamed buns with BBQ pork filling, and all the varieties of fresh fruit and vegetables that are great to snack on, but part of the fun of eating your way through the market is not knowing quite what you'll find or want. So go explore!
[Part 3: Bite of Seattle >> ]
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