Nishiki Market has existed for
about four hundred years and many of the shops
and stalls have been in the same families over that period. Walking down it one is
surrounded by everything that can entice the five senses and perhaps awaken the
sixth. There is the sound of people milling about or shopkeepers calling out their wares and intermingling
with their customers. To either side one sees shops selling
things great and small, bright neon colored spices, wiggling fish, knives like
samurai swords.
Textures are everywhere, from gripping
octopus tentacles, to smooth satins and silks for you to run your fingers
through. The most important senses
however are the taste and scent.
Nishiki Market is a paradise of
food, of smells and tastes for the traveler to try. While I did not attempt any at this time,
going back there I would gladly spend an hour at each of the stalls. Foremost in my mind of all the things I
experienced were two particular shops.
The first was a fish stall where Octopus stuffed with quail egg sits
speared on a stick.
The octopus itself is small, with tentacles down and skin bright red, looking almost like a lollipop. The presentation alone is enough to catch the eye, which is then drawn to the eels, salmon, tuna, and other things in the display. Just looking at the thing, you want to eat it, or at least I did.
The octopus itself is small, with tentacles down and skin bright red, looking almost like a lollipop. The presentation alone is enough to catch the eye, which is then drawn to the eels, salmon, tuna, and other things in the display. Just looking at the thing, you want to eat it, or at least I did.
Just down the way is another stall, with
belching steam coming out of this huge machine.
It had a warm, nutty aroma, and I realized they were roasting
chestnuts. The aroma mixed with other
scents of the spice shop with its cinnamon, clove and chile.
I feasted on senses as I stood there a moment at the knife shop while my
Dad perused. For a moment, I was a stone
in the stream of time as people filed in front of me and I beheld the moment in
Nishiki. Right across from me was
another fishmonger, an old man in white apron and hat with a face like a
humanized Droopy Dog. He had these sad
sunken eyes and low hanging cheeks, and the way he stood hunched beheld not his
statue or his product. Such beautiful
fish he had in that display, great gaping mouths and wide eyes.
Occasionally he would call over the crowd. I don’t
know what he said, but it was like a siren song, long and low. I wanted, if anything, to simply go and carry
a conversation, find out who he was and why he did this. I wanted to know each of these people, their
stories and their dreams. There is more
to the market than food and wares in the history and lives of the people who
run it and it was the only time I truly and desperately wished I spoke
Japanese.
We left Nishiki Market with a
strange sense of quiet sadness. Our
journey was approaching its end by this point, and the next day would be our
last before we headed back home. With a
heavy heart, I left the street and its wonders and secrets behind with the hope
I would come back again someday.
