This visually immersive tour of wet markets around the world celebrates, in the words of photographer Jeff Fierberg, “the last places where culture refuses to sit quietly in a museum.” From Angola to Italy, Mexico to Vietnam, Hong Kong to Rochester, NY, they are “the kind of places where life doesn’t just pass through—it crashes, it collides, it explodes. They aren’t sterile shopping experiences designed by consultants in glass towers. They’re the raw beating heart of humanity.” Fierberg’s photographs are accompanied by essays by local residents, some lifelong, others transplanted, all of them helping to provide context for these places where people sell and buy perishable foods: whole charcoal grilled chickens, candied peanuts, bean sprouts, shrimp jumping out of their baskets, blueberries, fresh and aged cheeses, pulque, homemade vinegar. The evident vibrancy of these places may make it hard to credit that many are imperilled, but it’s our hope that this book, intended to be the first in a series, calls attention to their valuable, distinctive complexity and does more than simply preserve their memory. Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.
