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only place in the French Quarter allowed to sell meat because of the decidedly hands-on and (let’s face it) gory nature of butchering. “Plunging incontinently into the meat market, a great clatter of coffee-cups, a cheery chumping as of chopping meat, various cries and polyglot invitations to buy, an omnipresent hum and hustle, with other sights, scents and sounds of traffic — all these await us,” proclaims an 1875 edition of The New Orleans Bulletin . “The butchers are naturally lords paramount of the scene. Here are butchers rotund, sturdy and civil, the Anglicism of their features American ized by three generations’ descent; butchers of the old French type, so elderly, clean shaven and obsequious that you would not be surprised at a pig-tail being whisked into your face during their brisk gesticulations; butchers akin to the modern Parisian, with the closest cropped heads; butchers more or less remarkable, but all busy, and all more or less animated.” Today, the Meat Market building is home to the constantly photographed, ever-recog nizable Café Du Monde. FISH AND SEAFOOD The Fish Market inside the French Market rotated locations several times over the course of its lifespan — and was often bundled together with the Bazaar Market — but never lost its undulating spirit of watery aliveness. “The glistening slabs of gray marble reflect the overhanging pent roofs, and Spanish mosses are twisted about the slender bars of iron on the stands. In baskets of latanier lie blue and scarlet crabs; in others are dark red crawfish looking like miniature lobsters. On beds of moss, like smaller lobsters still, the delicate river shrimps are fighting for life. They may be still powdered with the grits that tempted them into the fisherman’s net,” writes Cole in 1916. “Croakers hang in silver bunches; flat pompanos, their sleek skins shining, lie side by side with bluefish, Spanish mackerel, and trout for tenderloining. If you buy crabs, by the way, the dealer throws over them a handful of Spanish moss in which they tangle their claws and cannot get away.” In Charles L. Thompson’s 1950 work, Chronological History of The Old French Market: The most historic spot in America’s

Long before there were grocery stores, the French Market was the hub for ingredients and wares, and wandering through the market’s (messy, assuredly boisterous) buildings was a live-action stroll through the bounty of Louisiana’s rich meat, seafood, vegetables and fruits.

most interesting city from 1770 to 1937 , Thompson discusses in great detail the French Market’s ever-shifting seafood hall. “The first fish market was erected in 1840 and was for sea food only. However, it became overcrowded and when the new market was erected…originally intended for a vegetable market, [it] was given over to the fish dealers, to relieve the congestion…. From that period on the little fish market was transformed into a Bazaar; in fact, it became known as the Bazaar Market, and from that time on it was occupied by numerous dealers in dry goods, notions, etc., as well as a number of novelty dealers…it resembled a mid-way plaisance of a fair or Carnival.”

This swapping and sharing of space between divergent products at the French Market wasn’t unique to seafood, though. In the late 1800s, the Fruit Market often found that poultry purveyors would set up shop in its midst — squawking, feathers flying and all — until the rebuild by the WPA largely sanitized and separated the spaces once and for all. COFFEE Thanks, in part, to the French Market’s unique position near shipments coming off of the Mississippi River and, more important, an entrepreneurial free woman of color named

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