Blogger’s Bites: Italian Market Outing
Bloggers’ Bites is a series of posts chronicling the foodie adventures of Penn Appétit’s blog staff. On Saturday, February 1, Penn Appétit bloggers went to Philadelphia’s famous Italian Market.
Tina Kartika: People say first impression sets the tone for future encounters, and my first excursion to the Italian Market with Penn Appetit certainly made me excited for the rest of the year. The tour of Di Bruno Bros was one-of-a-kind, with free samples of cheese and interesting tidbits about the business. Did you know that everything on the shelf has a pairing? If you don’t know what you can eat with caramelized onion spread, you only need to ask the knowledgeable and friendly staff. Personally, the best part of Di Bruno Bros is its selection of Vosges Haut chocolate bars, the chocolate that started my chocolate obsession. The lunch at Mole Poblano was also amazing. They were the best tamales I’ve ever had in my life. And I’m from California. That says a lot about how delicious Mole Poblano’s tamales were. Shopping for fresh produce at the market was also a lot of fun, especially because everything was so cheap! I can’t wait for the next Penn Appetit event that would enrich my food experience!
Elena Crouch: Even though this was only the second time I’d been to the Italian market, I already have fallen in love with it. Having been to Italy every summer of my life, I can assure you that it really is similar to the markets there. On the frigid Saturday that we paid it a visit, the trash cans were burning and the produce was frozen from exposure, but I still managed to fill a few shopping bags with cheap vegetables. But before we began shopping, we paid a visit to the original Di Bruno Bros, a tiny shop filled to the brim with specialty local and Italian products, including many amazing cheeses. We were given a brief tour by the third generation owner of the shop, shown in the first picture in this post, who explained to us the philosophy behind running a gourmet cheese shop that really caters to the individual experience. I personally was on a mission to find a great cheese to put on a pizza I was making the next day, and he was extremely generous in letting us all try several different cheeses to help me decide which to choose. I ended up buying two types, a raschera cheese for melting on the pizza, and another harder cheese for eating as a snack with some good bread. After Di Bruno Bros, we headed over to Mole Poblano for lunch and had the best tamales I’ve ever had for the cheap price of $2.50 per large tamale. My favorites were the mole ones, which had a deep, savory flavor and a pleasing reddish color. After demolishing those, we paid a visit to Isgro’s pasticceria for some dessert, and brought our findings to a nearby hot chocolate house to escape the cold. Not a bad way to spend a freezing Saturday!
Iz Korostoff: On a bitterly cold Saturday morning at the end of January when outdoor exposure seems almost deadly, the Italian Market is full and lively. Tables and carts at the curb and open storefronts create a corridor of produce on the covered sidewalk, while cars crawl up South 9th street past vendors feeding barrel fires with fruit crates and newspapers. I stop by a cart selling four packs of blackberries for a dollar, along with lemons, cabbages, and chiles at similar clearance prices. The delight of the find is almost worth the dollar (though not quite, so I am still unhappy to throw out all four boxes of moldy berries the next day.) Beyond the produce are stores, from cramped dry-goods to ample poultry shops to the higher-end food stores. We enter Di Bruno Brothers, are immediately offered samples of cheese while we wait, backs to jar-stacked shelves to allow other customers access to the cheese cases and vats of olives. Our guide explains Di Bruno’s policy of free-handed samples to create a welcoming environment and educated customers, and we go through several rounds of tasting in the search of a few specific cheeses.
South of Washington Avenue the buntings don’t change color but eagles appear on the flags: we’re in Puebladelfia, so called for its large population from the Mexican state of Puebla in south-central Mexico. On Saturday mornings only Mole Poblano serves tamales, and we order the entire day’s selection—red, green, rajas, and mole. A steaming plate of fat cornmeal bullets arrives in moments. The dough is light, but still holds together well enough to be speared by a fork once we’ve piled sauce-flecked cornhusks on a separate platter. Muffled by the wrapping, the flavors are subtle but distinct—the spice of the rajas carries well, but the depth of the mole is the most balanced. While we’re unwrapping our meal the sign for dinner is placed outside: barbacoa will be served, along with the extensive list of regular and seasonal dishes. I’ll be back for it.
Chase: Italian Market? Please. Our visit down to South 9th Street was much more than an imaginary trip to Italia. Sure, our private tour of DiBruno Bros gave us a taste of life on the other side of the Atlantic (ed note: try the L’Amuse Gouda), but the Mexican section of the market is what really blew me away. Forget everything else I did that weekend, after one bite of the steaming hot mole tamale at Mole Poblano, I knew that my weekend had already peaked. Each corn husk-wrapped packet of earthy masa was perfectly soft and rejuevenating-ly soul warming after a long walk in the cold. A quick stop at Tortilleria San Roman for a fluffy corn tortilla literally hot off the tortilla press made for a great snack later on. A single afternoon in the Italian Market wasn’t nearly enough—I know I’ll be heading back soon.
