Porta Palazzo Porta Palazzo_9780812244069_3P.indd 1 1/5/12 11:34 AM CONTEMPORARY ETHNOGRAPHY Series Editors Kirin Narayan Alma Gottlieb A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher. Porta Palazzo_9780812244069_3P.indd 2 1/5/12 11:34 AM Porta Palazzo The Anthropology of an Italian Market RACHEL E. BLACK university of pennsylvania press philadelphia Porta Palazzo_9780812244069_3P.indd 3 1/5/12 11:34 AM Copyright © 2012 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Black, Rachel, 1975– Porta Palazzo : the anthropology of an Italian market / Rachel E. Black. — 1st ed. p. cm. — (Contemporary ethnography) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8122-4406-9 (alk. paper) 1. Porta Palazzo (Market : Turin, Italy) 2. Markets—Italy—Turin—Sociological aspects. 3. Grocery trade—Social aspects—Italy—Turin. 4. Grocery shopping— Social aspects—Italy—Turin. 5. Turin (Italy)—Social conditions. 6. Black, Rachel, 1975—Homes and haunts—Italy—Turin. I. Title. II. Series: Contemporary ethnography. HF5474.I82B535 2012 381'.4564130945121—dc23 2011050014 Porta Palazzo_9780812244069_3P.indd 4 1/5/12 11:34 AM To my mother, Rebecca, for sharing her love of food, cooking, and gardening. You are a constant inspiration to me. Porta Palazzo_9780812244069_3P.indd 5 1/5/12 11:34 AM Porta Palazzo_9780812244069_3P.indd 6 1/5/12 11:34 AM contents Foreword by Carlo Petrini ix Introduction: Going to Market 1 1. The Market as a Field 13 2. The Evolution of a Market 25 3. A Neighborhood, a Square, and a Market 46 4. Fare la spesa: Shopping, Morality, and Anxiety at the Market 65 5. Il Ventre di Torino: Migration and Food 93 6. Kumalé: Ethnogastronomic Tourism 119 7. Nostrano: The Farmers’ Market, Local Food, and Place 140 Conclusion: La Piazza—City, Public Space, and Sociability 169 Afterword: Porta Palazzo Market and Urban Renewal 177 Notes 183 Bibliography 191 Index 213 Acknowledgments 221 Porta Palazzo_9780812244069_3P.indd 7 1/5/12 11:34 AM Porta Palazzo_9780812244069_3P.indd 8 1/5/12 11:34 AM foreword Carlo Petrini The novelist Giovanni Arpino, like myself a native of Bra in the northwest- ern Italian region of Piedmont, once wrote that, paradoxically, Turin, the capital of our region, is “the most southern of Italian cities.” He was refer- ring to the fact that, as a result of the employment-related internal migra- tion of the 1950s and 1960s, a huge population of the city consisted of people from Calabria, Sicily, Puglia, and so on. Today I would go farther and argue that, thanks to more recent immigra- tion from North Africa and the Middle East, of all the major European cities not actually on the sea, Turin is the most Mediterranean. I say this largely be- cause it is a city of markets. Most of its quarters hold large, sprawling open-air affairs every day of the week. Historically speaking, I like to think of markets as links between different realities. It was thanks to them that, for centuries, the civilizations that sprang up along the shores of the Mediterranean met and melded. Mediterranean civilization would never have grown as rich and complex as it is without its markets, meeting places but also venues in which goods, culture, and knowledge were and are exchanged. Today traditional markets not only are of strictly economic importance but also have a clear social and urban significance. Often they are the mirror of the local context in which they are immersed. The largest of all Turin’s markets, known popularly as Porta Palazzo, is held in the city’s central and enormous Piazza della Repubblica. It is said to be the largest open air market in Europe—that’s just the fruit and vegetable section!—and is encircled at the northern end by the baroque architecture of Filippo Juvarra, not a local but a Sicilian from Messina. Porta Palazzo_9780812244069_3P.indd 9 1/5/12 11:34 AM