Food Street. The Ballarò Market

The choice for the MedWay that we propose has been addressed to the market of Ballarò, the most active of the three historical markets of Palermo that, even with alternate events, continue to feed the people of Palermo, and particularly those who reside in the historical center or in its proximity. They are the Vucciria market, the Capo market and, obviously, Ballarò. Their historical stratification tells of the symbiotic relationship between the city itself, its inhabitants and food and, for this very reason, we have chosen to focus our attention on it. The other forms of sale and distribution of food, in fact, have characteristics that can be found in any other urban context: large-scale food distribution, shopping malls and even retail sales in Palermo, as in other cities, respond to customary and well-known commercial logic. The historical markets, on the other hand, are the result of Palermo’s way of feeding the city. They have occupied and literally occupy large parts of the city, “stitching up” the emptiness of the invaded streets that are transformed from an external urban space into a continuous interior, whose walls are made of multicolored food: the painting La Vucciria painted in 1974 by Renato Guttuso, shows exactly this overabundance of food that invades the space and builds a sort of tunnel made of fish, vegetables and meat suspended like chandeliers.