The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

COLUMN: Clarissa Long explains it all

It’s almost been seven weeks now since I arrived in Ireland, almost 6 weeks since I got to Queen’s, and it has taken me that long to actually get myself over to St. George’s Market. When I arrived in Belfast, we had a quick International Students’ tour which passed by St. George’s Market and were told about the amazing produce and other products that appear there on Fridays and Saturdays. I immediately thought of farmers’ markets in the US.

There are definitely some throughout New York City and New York State, but as someone who actually grew up in New Jersey, the Garden State, I always think of farmers’ markets on the side of the road. I think of hot July days, me sitting in the backseat of my mom’s car on the way back from swimming in the public pool and little shacks saying “Jersey Fresh” and my mom pulling over to buy dinner. This could be sweetcorn, fresh tomatoes, herbs like basil, etc. They usually also had honey sticks (different flavors of honey, including regular, raspberry, chocolate, coca-cola, etc. in plastic tubes) which were my favorite.

After growing up on these kinds of farmers’ markets, I finally made it to Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, PA (about 45 minutes away from my parents’ house in New Jersey) as a teenager. In the heart of Philadelphia, there’s an indoor market, and  vendors sell different produce from the area as well as jewelry, plants, clothes, etc. There are vendors for foods from all over the world, especially cuisines that are popular in Philadelphia like Pennsylvania-Dutch, Mediterranean and of course, the Philly Cheese Steak.

St. George’s Market seemed like a very similar idea to Reading Terminal Market. In Belfast City Centre, I could see that many people put aside time on Saturdays for buying groceries, gifts and also just spending time there with friends and family. I was happily surprised to find a lot of diversity in food that I haven’t found quite yet in Belfast… Indian spices, Lebanese food, various coffees and teas, etc. The “Wee Jam Pot” stall made me laugh because it’s still a funny word to me as an American, and funnier still that people use it so much here. I also got some delicious marmalade there… marmalade is, unsurprisingly, a lot better here than in the states because Americans made it smoother and sweeter. Not good.

I accidentally sat down at a table for some sort of sewing workshop and realized that there were a lot of people who had come to learn about different designs and new techniques, but also to catch up with friends. While in Philadelphia there is music playing and tables to eat at, like in Belfast, I don’t remember any ‘events’ happening and I thought this was a great idea. What better way to continue being around friends after eating and shopping than to do something relaxing and challenging? I was interested to see the main event was a group of women sewing. I’m not sure what that says about Belfastians, but I could tell that overall everyone was relaxed and having a good time, which follows what I’ve been finding during my stay here.

Tags: Clarissa Long, Gown, International students, newspaper, qub, Queen's, queen's university, student, students, The Gown

This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 5:02 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.