I don’t shop for food outside of my ‘hood all too often these days and so a recent visit back to the Queen Victoria Market made me realise the distinctiveness of the aural landscape of Melbourne’s markets. Markets in Footscray are dominated by vendors spruiking their specials in Vietnamese, generally whichever fruit is cheapest and in season. The Queen Vic Market is all in English, the specials are the “known value items” – foodstuff that most consumers can name the going price – especially, bananas.
Meat sales seem even more reliant on spruikers, especially as the morning wears on, and the afternoon bulk discounts kick in.
You have got to get the one of the guy at the La Ionica chicken shop in Footscray Market – “Boilers a dollar! Boilers a dollar! Come on buyers!” I don’t know how he keeps it up – he’s pretty amazing!
Cool, I use to work at Queen Victoria Market!
Audio foodblogging? The man’s a genius! My favourite was always “dollahbox! cumangetit, dollahbox!”
I like to imagine the grocers at home on Monday drinking warm lemon honey tea and sucking on strepsils.