Souk El Tayeb

This morning my colleague Cleo and I took a walk in the warm October sunshine to Beirut's first (and possibly only) organic farmers' market: Souk El Tayeb. Finding it was a bit of a challenge, as the roads on our maps didn't quite seem to match up to the roads in real life. Not to mention the fact that 'Martyrs' Square,' which seemed like it would be a prominent landmark, isn't a square and didn't have any obvious martyrs in it, so it wasn't much help.

Also very unhelpful were the maps the city put up on street corners. They all had an icon that said 'Vous Etes Ici/You are Here' in the key, but not on the map itself. Very odd.

There also were lots of police barricades and big gaggles of beret-wearing, gun-toting policemen/soldiers. It seemed like they were mostly just chatting with one another, though, and letting their rifles dangle casually from their shoulders, like guitars. They didn't pay any attention to Cleo or me.

Just as we started to despair of ever finding the souk (which means 'market' in Arabic), we rounded a corner, darted across a busy street, and there it was!

We entered the ring of white tents, and the first things I saw were...bagels! Just when I had given up ever finding bagels in this city, there they were, at a bakery booth in the market. Alongside some amazing-looking rosemary-olive bread, chocolate-orange cake, and apple tart were four plain bagels. I asked if that was all they had (it was) and said I'd take them all. The woman at the booth said in an American-sounding accent, 'just don't tell anyone they're a Jewish delicacy!' We laughed, and headed to the next booth.

Cleo and I both marveled at the very low prices of the beautiful organic produce. For instance, I bought four apples and maybe three handfuls of gorgeous cherry tomatoes, and it cost the equivalent of about 75 cents. Then I picked out four small green peppers at another booth, and the guy just waved me away when I tried to pay. Wow!

The neat thing about Souk El Tayeb is that it seems to be very committed to social justice and environmentally friendly farming practices. They have a neat website (http://www.soukeltayeb.org/), which explains that 'tayeb' means 'good,' as in tasting good, as in being of good character, and as in being full of life. The market is certainly all three.

The other neat thing is that it happens every week, which means that there may be more bagels in my future!