The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
Market Day in Montepulciano

"To market, to market, to buy a fat pig." So went the words of the old children's song ... and so went our day today. Thursday is market day in Montepulciano, the sun was shining and all was right with the world. Street markets are a long-established tradition in most of Europe. Dozens, even hundreds, of vendors set up in town selling everything from shoes and clothing (LOTS of that today) to prepared foods, meats, cheeses, fresh fish, produce, flowers, household items and hardware. It's rather like the mall coming to you rather than the other way around.

Vendors work a regular circuit (tomorrow most of today's sellers will be down the road in Pienza to do it all over again). The weekly market not only provides employment to thousands of small entrepreneurs but provide a vital service to the residents of the smaller towns, most of whom have no good way (or desire) to travel afar for necessary shopping.


We were drawn to the market not for the clothing, but for the food. Specifically, we were looking for porchetta (pronounced por-ketta) -- roasted boneless whole pig, sliced to order. In France, you find rotisserie chicken at every street market; in Italy, it's porchetta and street markets are the only place we've seen it. 400 grams (about a pound) of porchetta, a container of roasted potatoes and we have two days of tasty dinners. As in France, they pile the potatoes in the bottom of the rotisserie where they're constantly basted as they cook by the juices from the meat. Fantastico!

I suspect not everybody comes to the market for shopping. It seems to be as much a community social gathering as an exercise in commerce. Wandering through the market, we probably saw as many people talking with friends and neighbors as looking over the wares. Certainly there were the greetings, hugs and short exchanges you'd expect if you ran into a friend on the street, but in a small town everybody knows everyone else, the process seems perpetual. Groups of women talking together is fairly common, but at this Italian market, the women were the ones shopping and the men were grouped in clusters no doubt addressing the serious issues of the day (with no shopping bags in sight).

Our porchetta secured and with no old friends to visit with, we dropped our goodies back at the apartment and wandered down the street for lunch. Margene had been lusting after the eggplant parmigiana she saw on the menu at Trattoria di Cagnano, only to learn that it was a seasonal offering and not available. She went with her second choice, gnocchi in gorgonzola sauce and I ordered lasagna out of curiosity. In retrospect, we would have been better off with ribollita and pizza again.

The trattoria's menu is extensive, but the predictable result is a mix of marvelous and mediocre products. The marvelous ones build the trust level, the so-so offerings defeat it. By contrast, Osteria Acquacheta has a very limited menu and everything I have ever ordered there has been exceptional. Perhaps that's why they have a regional following and Cagnano doesn't. There's a lot to recommend smaller menus.

A walk around town and we called it good enough for today. Besides, we already had dinner in the bag!


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