comedy routine at the Fish market

Shopping for food in Rome can sometime lead either into long discussions on the merit of one type of tomato over another or in this case on the freshness of fish and seafood on offer. Today I went to ELITE one of the supermarkets in our area on Piazza Dalmazia (Dalmatia). They have a new fresh fish market and it is very popular, more so than the meat counter next to it.  This being Friday, there were 6 ladies of mature age waiting to be served. One lady being served was engaged in a long discussion with the fishmonger on the matter of how fresh the fish and seafood she was buying was, she wanted to know when it had arrived and if it really was fresh or previously frozen. The other ladies where all listening, as if this was a soap opera of somekind. The lady had already bought 2 kg of giant shrimps and one kg of clams and now wanted to buy this enormous fish enough to feed 6 adults easily. The seafood was the antipasto before the meal and the clams would certainly go into a pasta dish as a first course, the fish being the second course.

Buying food in Italy is serious adult business and it has nothing to do with the way we buy food in supermarkets in North America, you do not bring the kids, they would be at school or with grandmother or at home with the maid. You do sometimes see a father with one child but that is for quick errands.

All present at the counter were well dressed, going shopping is sort of a social occasion and you would certainly meet the neighbors, so it is important to create a good impression, even if you are only buying a head of salad.

So there she was arguing with the fishmonger, who was all smiles and assured her in a very courteous tone that is fish and seafood was guaranteed absolutely to be the freshest. The lady was not convinced, not to worry he says, I will prove it to you, here he pulls out his ledger of purchases. I was a little alarmed by this, since I was parked in a blue zone with no permit and I really wanted to get on with my shopping before the traffic police came, an illegal parking fine is 57 Euros in Rome. But then again it was 1 pm and lunch time so I thought, what is the likely hood of the traffic police showing up at this time of day, they are most probably off to lunch like everyone else.

So we all went through the ledger with the fishmonger and all the other customers, so that everyone be convinced of his honest intentions and the freshness of his merchandise, it all had been purchased that morning at dawn. The order paper was written in pencil with quantity, name of fish or seafood, weight and grocer's price.  I thought, gee how many countries in the world would a fishmonger or a butcher or a vegetable sales person go through this much trouble to convince his customers. Fish can be expensive, sole was 24 euros a kg, fresh giant shrimps was 20 euros a kg and so on. But it is very fresh and comes from local producers. The lady was finally satisfied, her fish was all cleaned and wrapped for her and the audience convinced that all was on the up and up.  At the same time you can see that a real rapport is established between the customer and the vendor. It's the same with my butcher, either at ELITE or on the corner store where I also go for that special cut. We also have our favorite ice cream (gelateria) store we go too all the time and get new flavors depending on the season or at the fruit and vegetable vendor who always has time to say hello. I also like to get advice at the wine store on what to buy and maybe get a discount in the proceed.

Be sure also that the fishmonger will ask the lady when she returns how she found the fish and was her family happy with the quality. My butcher, Armando, always asks me afterwards, so how was the steak or the lamb, you have to say more than it was good, you have to make a compliment and thank him for the service, it's all part of the experience of shopping.