Souk el tayeb farmers’ market in Lebanon
Souk el tayeb, the first farmers’ market in Beirut and established by Lebanese Slow Food coordinator Kamal Mouzawak, takes place every Saturday in the Solidere neighborhood on the property of real estate company Société Libanaise de Développement et Reconstruction. The private company was created to reconstruct the city’s center after the civil war.
Until the events of a few days ago, the center was the focal point of commercial activity and a symbol for the rebirth of the city.
Twenty some small producers converge upon Souk el tayeb from various parts of the country to set up their beautiful, brilliant yellow stands. Producers and consumers are in direct contact here; there is a relationship of trust that regenerates every Saturday morning at the market in Solidere.
For four days, the neighborhood merchants’ stores have been closed and the Souk el tayeb farmers have not come to sell their products.
In other cities in the country such as Tiro and Byblos, the situation is becoming increasingly uncertain. A few kilometers from Israel in Majedl el Zoun, Christian and Muslim producers from the Earth&Co cooperative who make Kechek el fougara or “cheese of the poor�, a new Slow Food presidium, were forced to evacuate the area for the safer capital, leaving their home in the hands of the military.
Slow Food is sympathetic to these stricken Lebanese communities and we all hope that the dramatic tensions will cease as soon as possible. We hope that Souk el tayeb can soon open its shutters and life can again resume on the streets of Beirut. Everyday life in the capital and in the Lebanese countryside has already been devastated by a long civil war (1975-1990). It has only been a few years since commercial activities – and consequently, agricultural production – have been able to benefit from the country’s relative political stability and reconstruction.
Update:
On the first day of the war, Nelly and Mona, coordinators of the recently founded Kechek el fouqara Cheese Presidium, fled their border village, Majdel Zoun. Like many producers in the area, they left behind their land, crops, harvests and lives’ work.
The participants of the Souk el tayeb farmers’ market, however, are focused on production rather than destruction; moving the market to a new, safer location, they are taking back their daily routines with conviction. Joining Souk el tayeb producers and their families at the new site will be Youmna and Tony’s vegetables, Maissoun and Walid’s baskets of delicious bread, this season’s honey and honey combs gathered by Maurice, Nada’s mouneh, (traditional stockpiled food rations), Carole’s marzipan, Therese’s jams, and Oum Ghassan’s pottery, among others.
Congregating in Faqra, located in the mountainous area of Metn east of Beirut, the Souk el tayeb farmers’ market intends to meet from three to seven this Friday and every Friday.
For information on Souk el tayeb farmers’ market contact Séverine Petit, s DOT petit AT slowfood DOT com.
Terra Madre coordinator, 09:18:AM | 2006 Event | Comment (43)
I am impressed by your beautiful resistance, by your strong will. I hope the market could meet yesterday in spite of the heavy shelling all over the country.
Karim, 09:53 PM - 05 August 06May you keep making it happen.
The inspiring and courageous work that Kamal and his many co-workers do models the very kind of behaviors of caring for one another and caring for the earth that will evdentually shame and humiliate those who opt instead for conflict and nihilism. Their food is good, but their spirit is just as important for the world to savor. In an otherwise dark and treagic year,Souk el Tayeb gives me hope.
Gary Nabhan, 04:54 AM - 17 November 06Gasry Paul Nabhan, Lebanese-American food activist
Lebanese food couldn’t be anything but slow, there are no barriers to market entry for farmers, organic or otherwise as they can setup and sell their stuff pretty much anywhere in the country except in todays “Haririland” where this Anglo-phonic - glorified farmers market is taking place and for those born yesterday used to be THE MARKET for all of Lebanon.
terenuri Bucuresti, 06:15 PM - 27 March 08Informative site...thanks for sending this post…
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