Better living through tomatoes

If you've been paying any attention to what you've been eating during the past few decades, you've probably noticed what we have: the US's relationship with what and how it eats is unhealthy--and it's getting worse. Stressed by foolish management practices, soil quality in the US has been declining, meaning that the nutritional punch of crops grown in the US has been declining apace. Perhaps as part of a confused attempt to compensate for this decline, agribussinesses have laced the US food supply with a broad spectrum of literally thousands of additives, pesticides, and other toxins. Also, most of what you eat likely contains ingredients which have been genetically modified in a lab. It's become harder and harder to find good food Stateside.

Despite the fact that American food isn't much good, we eat too damned much of it.

When you say, "Super size me!" to a MacDonald's employee, you just might get what you ask for.

And on top of all that somatic nastiness, the collective psychic relationship with food in the US ain't none too good neither. All in all, it's not easy to eat well in the US if you can't afford The French Laundry (often called the best restaurant in the US; currently priced at USD $240 per head per meal).

But here in Montréal, it's different. How different? Very different. With 1.9 million inhabitants and some 12,000 eateries, Montréal can boast the extraordinary per capita restaurant density of 1 eating establishment for every 158 residents. If that seems really dense, it is. Chicago offers a restaurant for every 359 residents; and Paris, surprisingly (since they can claim credit for inventing restaurants in first place) provides only one restaurant for every 742 residents. At the other end of the spectrum, Tokyo offers its 12.8 million residents an almost unbelievable 190,000 restaurants--which yields a mind-boggling per capita density of 67. Few cities of comparable size offer a better per capita restaurant density than Montréal--certainly none in North America do.

But the restaurants are really only an indicator of the culture's interest in and concern for excellent food. The gems in Montréal's culinary crown are its fabulous open air markets, from which the restaurants receive their ingredients. Can't make good food without good ingredients. The market closest to H and me (there are officially four such markets in the city) is the marché Jean-Talon, located near the Jean-Talon metro station.

Nothing pictured here traveled more than 100km to reach you, except maybe the furniture.

J-T (as H and I have nicknamed it) is open year-round, but its late summer offerings are second to none. I'd put its produce up against anything else I've ever seen. Not Paris's--nay, not even Strasbourg's markets can top it. To help you picture it all, I've prepared a little photo tour, a brief exercise pamphlet for your salivary glands, if you will. And remember that the city's master chefs have yet to get their hands onto this stuff. As astonishing as it seems, everything you see here will actually taste even better once they're done with it.

If you can't think of what you could possibly do with all those berries, you're one more victim of supermarkets and agribusiness.


Ever wonder what it might feel like to palpate a rainbow?


You might even learn a little fractal math--if you don't eat it first.


J-T's coup de grace: tomatoes. Lots and lots of tomatoes.


Yes, even the tomatoes come in a rainbow of flavors.


Half-sunny? Half-shady? Who cares, 'cuz it's all tasty.