Part 1: How Does Food Trigger Joy? Here are the World's Most Brilliant, Walkable Outdoor Markets [Campo de' Fiori Rome]

During my second year of graduate school, I spent about four months studying city architecture and urban design within the historic center of Rome. I shared a cozy apartment with two classmates in the neighborhood of Trastevere. Apart from traveling with my parents to India and living with family in Hydrabad for the summer months, I had never experienced living in another country beyond the United States. I had visited Rome once before for a week with my family and took in the major sites of The Eternal City. At that time, I never really understood why people said a lifetime was not enough to experience Rome.

The first few weeks consisted of me bumbling my way through the city trying to figure out how to get from the apartment, to studio and to find sustenance. Luckily, a few of my classmates had studied in Rome before and showed me a walk that I proceeded to take every day. I would walk over the Tiber River along the Ponte Sisto taking in the crisp morning air, a German Shepard would be right outside the grocery store and a chocolate Labrador was always standing in the jeweler’s shopfront doorway, both ready to greet me as I continued on through the Campo de’ Fiori to school. Of course, I would have to stop by the local bar, typically Sant’ Eustachio Il Caffe, for a cappuccino and croissant before starting the day in studio. If you know an architect, you know it was a blessing in disguise that studio would close at eleven every night and reopen in the morning. My walk home would be the same, although Campo de’ Fiori would not be bustling with produce vendors in the evening. Campo de’ Fiori was where I fell in love with outdoor markets and local produce. In the Middle Ages, the area was a meadow, which is why the name “field of flowers” was given to the square. It has always remained a focus for commercial and street culture. Through urban development under Pope Sixtus IV, wealth came to the area and a flourishing horse market took place twice a week. Since 1869, a daily fish, vegetable and flower market has been held here. The square is shaped by inns, hotels, shops and outdoor cafes. I loved the bustle, the energy from all of the people, the vendors always willing to spend time and talk to you, the vibrant colors, water spraying on the flowers to keep them fresh and the sun rising into the afternoon sky. Every morning I stopped and lingered, and every day I picked up something to snack on.

Campo de' Fiori - Outdoor Market

Campo de' Fiori - Vegetable Market

Campo de' Fiori - Flower Market

This new found love for local artisans, farmers and markets stayed with me as I traveled in Italy, Spain and Portugal that year witnessing the artist market in Piazza Navona, San Miguel Market in Madrid, La Boqueria Market off of Las Ramblas in Barcelona and others.

Piazza Navona

San Miguel Market

La Boqueria Market

An important lesson I look away while exploring Umbria and Tuscany is that cities need a certain amount of land around them to nutritionally support the community in a harmonious and sustainable way. A city should have a physical, structural boundary separating the urban and natural environments for an ecologically responsible system. When we witness Italian hill towns, we can see where the city ends and the countryside begins. Cities should expand in a holistic manner each neighborhood with their own character and physically self-sufficient structure that is within walking distance to daily goods, services, homes and schools.

Siena

Pienza

Positano

When we see markets in cities that showcase the seasonal offerings of local farmers and artisans, we celebrate color, abundance, beauty and tasty food as opposed to nutrients. Color is energy made visible. It activates an ancient circuit that lights up with pleasure at the idea of finding something sweet to eat. We also find joy in the quantity and variety of the items displayed. Observing abundance is important since it satisfies the act of survival in our primal mind. Trained to the cycles of surplus and hardship, we crave quantity as a defensive wall against an uncertain future. It is too our desire of beauty that has attracted us to flowers and in turn food producing plants. In fact, finding beauty in flowers is considered so natural that psychiatrists find a patient’s indifference to flowers a sign of clinical depression. Many cultures see flowers as a symbol of beauty. Just as observing abundance, an appreciation of plants and flowers was crucial to our ancestor’s survival. By being able to identify blossoms and know what plants were going bear fruit, our ancestor's increased their chances of survival.

Markets are a magnet within the public realm, they appear in front of and within shopfront windows as outdoor display, they appear within enclosed public open space, and they appear within street fairs where streets act as linear civic spaces. You can always hear life through the vendors, children and music in the background. If you are like me, you tend to forget what is available within each season. It’s like a little surprise every time I go to the market and the season has changed. I get especially excited when I see pomegranates and figs in San Francisco, that means the holiday season is around the corner.

Enjoyment happens naturally when we are able to focus on the present moment. I think concentrating on the taste of food pulls you into the present moment (so do difficult yoga poses, observing architectural details, running sprints and lifting weights). Doing this enables the joy of being to move through our bodies - this is the joy of consciousness.

All of these experiences have reinforced an Italian way of life that I still carry with me today, La Bella Figura. If this phrase is new to you, I would highly recommend Bella Figura (recommended to me by James Richards). Beauty is revered in Italy, whether expressed grandly through art and architecture, or simply by setting yourself a seat at the table with a proper plate, utensils, glass of wine and a flower. Bella figura goes beyond image, visual beauty and presentation, it is defined by gracious behavior and how you view and treat yourself.