Food Markets And Immigrant Identity in New York – A Panel Discussion at the Museum of the City of New York

Mulberry Street Market around 1910

 Who benefits from holding onto ethnic traditions in the New York City Marketplace?

This was the most prevalent theme at the Museum of the City of New York’s panel discussion last night entitled Food Markets and Immigrant Identity in New York City.  As the most ethnically diverse region of the United States melting pot (thank you, Queens), we have an unparalleled food community, where one can find a stellar taco on one corner, and sit for homemade pierogies two doors down.  Our Korean markets and bodegas offer Coconut Water alongside lychees and candles of the Virgin Mary.  And with markets dotting from Arthur Avenue in the Bronx down to Essex Market in the Lower East Side to the trendy cobblestones of Chelsea, we truly have a treasure trove of cuisines.

But as our city never sleeps, change is inevitable, and it is the questionable danger of this change that dominated the the conversation at the museum.

The panelists were Annie S. Hauck-Lawson, co-editor or Gastropolis: Food and New York City, Annie Lanzilotto, performing artist and activist and Jennifer Berg, director of the graduate program in Food Studies at NYU.  The discussion was lead by Jonathan Deutsch, the other co-editor of Gastropolis and culinary professor at Kingsborough college in Brooklyn.

After a quick overview of the history of immigrant markets in New York City, the discussion turned to the social nature of markets that remains present today.  Hauck-Lawson pointed out that not only were the markets a central point of commerce, but they were also social spaces and windows into the communities that have shaped our city over time.  New immigrants would flock to their neighborhood markets for the foods that reminded them of home, but also for information on open jobs, health and housing support in their new communities, as well as news from home.

The language spoken was not always English, and within the market environment intimately regional connections were made.  The panelists pointed out – through a comparative of Mexican populations in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and Jackson Heights, Queens – that still today markets initially take on a fiercely regional approach to their purchasing and marketing.  They supply items that call out to a specific subculture in Mexico, and alert their customers to their speciality through flags and colors that call out “home”.  This was a common connection – food and the home country – that fueled those who came here in the early 19th century as well.

The relatively easy access that was offered into the market world during earlier immigration also remains in a certain extent to this day.  One peddling a bucket full of fish on Orchard Street in the 1840s could invest their profits into purchasing a pushcart that could eventually lead to the opening of a storefront.  An example given was Joel Russ, of Russ and Daughter’s.  In the early years of the 20th century Joel sold Polish mushrooms out of a bucket.  He invested that money into a pushcart and then opened a storefront in 1914 that still stands to this day, recognized as a historical landmark.  Locals know that if you want quality smoked fish and dried fruit, you head to Houston and Orchard.

Similarly, Deutsch manages the “Kitchen Incubator” at Kingsborough, where entrepreneurial chefs can use the industrial kitchen to create their initial product and get guidance on food licensing.  Once the product is sold locally and obtains a certain level of demand, it can then be produced on a greater manufacturing level in an outside location, making room for a new product.

So with such strong connections between the immigrant experience in New York City and the continually developing food culture we pride ourselves on, what do we let change, and what do we hold onto dearly?

As Berg pointed out, in the past twenty years in New York City being ethnic has become trendy.  The Lower East Side, Chinatown, Arthur Avenue and ethnic enclaves in Brooklyn and Queens not only serve natives and descendants of their respective countries, but a continually widening crowd of educated, gentrified outsiders who hunger for flavors foreign to their own culture.  In some cases more commercialized markets like Eataly satisfy.  In others, like the smaller markets of Chinatown, there is such a demand by the native community that there is no need to cater to a larger pool of tourists and outsiders.  English is rarely spoken, outsiders are not readily embraced – the market is for natives only.

So this question started circling, both by the panelists and during the Q&A afterward: who benefits from trying to preserve the “authenticity” of ethnic markets in New York City?

Lanzilotto was perhaps the most deliciously outspoken of the panelists.  A performing artist and activist, she’s spent much time in the Arthur Avenue Market pointing out what makes people uncomfortable within this little Italian community.  When an actress she hired for a piece expressed her discomfort at the presence of  pin-ups of women on butcher’s refrigerators alongside cuts of meat, Lanzilotto literally shined light on the images and walked her audiences through the space to point out the sexism.  When she noticed a fierce racism hanging amidst many of the purveyors, she hired an African-American opera singer to sing arias in the market.  The vendors came out from their stalls to hear the beautiful music, only to revert back to their un-subtle racial slurs once her ethnicity was revealed.

So Lanzilotto was not optimistic about the current trend of trying to hold onto “authenticity” in the modern markets.  On Eataly, she pointed out “I can’t stand to be sold my identity.  Merchants selling Italian food has nothing to do with tradition.  Eataly teaches me to be a consumer, not a creator of my soul”.

Deutsch pointed out that he liked Eataly and the current uptick in trendy markets, because not only do they provide quality ingredients that he, as a chef, needs but they also keep tourists and the less interested away from the better markets that he needs to frequent.

But, he pointed out, it is the success of the larger, more commercial markets that takes away the consumers from the smaller markets that are in danger of closing.

Berg pointed out, though, that trying to hold onto the authenticity of markets makes her a bit afraid of cultural imperial.  Ethnic markets are started in neighborhoods to fulfill a need.  Both Berg and Hauck-Lawson pointed out that in no way does a market or community here authentically recreate one from its original country of origin.  Yes, items can be provided that provide links to home.  But the act of immigration and the sway of commerce changes the nature of the culture as soon as it opens shop here.  For example nowhere in Chinese history, Hauck-Lawson pointed out, do Chinese proprietors sell sushi.  Sushi is, obviously, Japanese.  But at one point it was noted that people were spending more on Japanese sushi than in Chinese restaurants.  Hence the creation of “pan-Asian” cuisine.  Once a consumer pays more for one item in a store, the proprietor can generally lift the cost of other goods.  Similarly, if a Mexican man finds no demand for “authentic” tacos in his neighborhood, he may start selling Puerto Rican food to fill a need in his neighborhood.

Those results are encouraged by those directly dealing with ethnicity and the market culture.  The fear amongst the panelists is that it is the outsiders who demand and try to preserve an ethnic authenticity within the market community.  They want the “perfect taco”, Berg said, though a taco has nothing to do with their own heritage.  As a young enthusiastic food generation, we want to learn, replicate and preserve the recipes, processes and culture surrounding food that has little or nothing to do with where we came from.

Hauck-Lawson told an interesting story about a Polish wedding.  She asked the audience what two foods they primarily think of when asked what is a tradition Polish food.  The answer: kielbasa and pierogies.  At this wedding both were served.  The groom’s mother, who had come to the States shortly before the wedding, was mortified at seeing those foods on the buffet.  She took her son aside to brashly chastise him, for kielbasa is the Polish equivalent of American hot dogs, and pierogies are something whipped up for an afternoon snack.  At no Polish wedding in Poland would one see such foods offered to guests at such an event.  But the son had to emphatically explain to his mother that those foods were considered traditional in the United States, an appropriate offering at a wedding.

Traditions change, the panelists pointed out.  Berg clarified that human beings crave change, thrive upon it.  And one reason why people from other countries immigrate to the United States is for just that purpose: change.  The roots of the food culture remain within ethnicities, but what feels “traditional” is ever evolving.

One thing that has changed dramatically and is now lacking in our current market culture is the song of those hawking their wares.  Lanzilotto related how in 1939 beloved mayor Fiorello La Guardia passed Rule 23: “No shouting or hawking by vendors nor abusive or lewd language”.  Until that point, the air in the markets was filled with the song of vendors, so distinctive that a tune could tell a customer when a product was ripe for purchasing.  She read a bit of a poem about a Bronx “fish man”, who promised “your cast iron pan would be seasoned with a thousand minerals.  You would never die.  You would never die.  You would never die.”

And the audience walked away with this question: If you had to sing to sell what you need to sell, what would your song be?