Many markets serve some of the deep sea's most tantalizing treasures like the briny barnacles — percebes — at La Boqueria in Barcelona, also the spot to taste Jabugo ham, the world's best air-cured pork. Budapest's Central Market Hall offers de facto crash courses in the wonders of paprika, peppered pork and the soothing biscuits called pogasca.  But such practical pleasures may be the least of the lures. Attending this living theater, one can assess the local economy by noting the quality and variety of foods available and compare prices to our own. One can observe how locals treat one another. Are sellers and buyers polite and trusting as they deal under intense pressure — the first to sell out highly perishable merchandise, the second to get the best value for family, shop or restaurant?  Is there much bargaining, as in the vociferous 700-year-old Vucciria and even older Ballarò markets of Palermo where giant swordfish heads are displayed swords up on fish counters, or in the seductively fragrant spice markets like the exotic 17th-century Misir Carsisi (Egyptian Bazaar) in Istanbul, or in Khan el-Khalili in Cairo or the Levinksy in Tel Aviv, where oiled, claylike paprika is sculptured into towering cones that defy both breezes and the exuberant hand-waving of haggling buyers and sellers? (Theoretically passé, bargaining endures, an entertaining game few habitués would relinquish.)  Or might the mores dictate truly one-price-only with no fear of heavy thumbs on scales, as at Helsinki's romantic morning harbor market, where you can find tiny almond-flavored potatoes, golden cloudberries, varieties of fresh herring, and smoked reindeer tongue, depending on the season. Or in Munich's outdoor Viktualienmarkt. Bordered by shops selling meat, fresh, smoked and pickled fish, this is a nosher's haven with many a schnell imbiss, or quick snack stand, for the hot liver pâté, leberkäse and morning weisswurst washed down with potent, lemon-sparked Munich weissbier.  In my experience, the world's most spectacular market is in Tokyo, the Central Wholesale Market, a k a Tsukiji, or, more accurately perhaps, Fish City. This cavernous sprawl, indoors and out, is on the banks of the Sumidagawa River, and is curtained with mist as action begins at about 3 a.m. Raining or not (and it often is) boots and slickers are in order, for if the morning dew doesn't dampen you, the hoses that continuously keep concrete floors and counters airily fresh surely will. At outdoor entrance stands, small live mollusks and crustaceans bubble and sizzle in running aerated water, and piles of gnarled octopus look like so much amethyst quartz.  Among the staggering aquarium array of brain food — some five million pounds daily — the star is tuna. The less flavorful varieties from such warm waters as the Indian Ocean are frozen whole and laid out like snowy fighter planes on an airfield. Tails are sliced off so potential buyers can examine cut ends to judge the quality mark of fat, all suggesting piscatorial proctologists diligently at work. Bluefin tuna is the prize at the auction, held around 5 a.m. The lightning-fast, voiceless bidding relies on rock-paper-scissors sort of hand movements.  ABOUT 15 years ago I witnessed a 500-pound bluefin flown in from Montauk fetch $50,000 wholesale and watched it being cut with a lengthy sabrelike steel blade into tapering vertical quarters. Generously, I was offered bits of the meat clinging to the frame, a sort of lagniappe for good customers — and no wonder! Still warm at the center, the moistly roseate flesh tasted like the most sublime, sweetly meaty filet mignon. Then there was the no-frills Daiwa sushi bar right in the market, where prices for the unadorned sushi of the pearliest fresh fish and live “dancing” shrimp were one-third of those in town.  Anyone who doubts that meat can be so visually, viscerally stunning as fish, need only step into the butcher's hall in the Agora, Athens's central market. Prepare to be a bit unhinged at the vista of dripping, hacked cuts of all sorts and garlands of innards and organs. This wholesale and retail center just might be a warehouse for those who have committed bloody mayhem or, less violently, for a Rembrandt or a Soutine, painters who were intrigued by the brutal beauty of freshly slaughtered animals. Walk down row after row across the wide aisles and end at a steamy crowded cafe featuring tripe soups and stews.  Among markets that sell all sorts of comestibles to both the trade and the public, one of the most diverse and captivating is Borough Market in London. Said to be the city's oldest food market, established on the south bank of the Thames when the Romans built the first London Bridge, the Borough Market has been on its present site for 250 years. On Friday and Saturday its gates open to the retail public, and what a festive cornucopia it is. Not only are the stands overflowing with temptations, but there are also innumerable spots for snacking on free or paid samples.  Travelers might best skip imports in favor of such British specialties as various cockles, mussels and icy North Sea oysters, then compare Keen's and Quickes earthily complex Cheddar cheeses. There are Cornish pasties, jams, buns and biscuits galore, and crunchily fried fish (snowy thick cod and haddock are best) and chips, at the open stand called fish! Join the walking eating, or squat on chairs spotted around or, better yet, decamp to benches just five minutes across the road in the garden of Southwark Cathedral, a charmer of mixed architectural styles dating back to the 13th century.  In Mexico City, La Merced is a vast fiesta of a central market, with several huge buildings. Stepping into each is a shock no matter how many times this rabid food lover does it. There are chilies, of course, in every shade of purple-black, green, orange, yellow and red, with fiery flavors from hot to inflammable. Piles of the nopales (cactus leaves) and prickly cactus pears, with or without needles, rainbows of corn and fragrantly inviting tacos, quesadillas and tamales are just a few of the enticements.  My own pet sight here is the huge hanging sheets of chicharrones or pork cracklings, these made of whole pig skins opened flat and fried to resemble thick sheets of hammered gold leaf.  In the United States, few if any farmer's markets can compare to the truly epic Green Dragon Market held every Friday in Ephrata, Pa. Nested in the peaceful, abundant farmlands of the Amish and the Mennonites, the seven main halls spread around 30 acres, hold all sorts of local provender with distinct Pennsylvania Dutch overtones. Scrapple, German-style sausages and cured pork, sauerkraut and glass jars of pickled hard-boiled eggs reddened with beet juice are featured at butcher stands. Bakery cases display Moravian cookies and pies called moon, Sunday, schnitz, love and the molasses-rich wet-bottom shoofly. Outside in good weather, funnel cakes are deep-fried in giant vats before being sprinkled with powdered sugar. Books, household goods, junk and antiques are on hand, but don't be sidetracked from the Mennonite celery.  Having never imagined I could get excited about that banal salad vegetable, I was surprised to find upon tasting these tender, pale ivory stalks that I felt no need for salt — a first and, perhaps, a last unless I can find that celery again.  In addition to food for people, the Green Dragon has feed for animals. Each Friday in a separate part of the field, open-back trucks packed with bales of hay, clover, alfalfa and grass line up so bearded, straw-hatted Amish farmers can inspect for mold or damp rot before rat-a-tat bidding tobacco-auction style.  Most alluring now because they are so little known are the food markets of sub-Saharan Africa, most especially the Merkato in Addis Ababa, one of the largest food markets on the continent described most alluringly by Marcus Samuelsson in his cookbook “The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa” (Wiley, 2006). Others on an African agenda should include the orderly, prosperous, covered Nairobi City Market in Kenya and, for contrast, the teeming, poorer wholesale Saidiyeh market in Zanzibar, Tanzania, where bright fruits and rooty vegetables are scattered on the cloth-covered ground.  And, at this time of year, how could any market buff bypass a glorious Christkindlmarkt, held from the first Advent Sunday (this year, Dec. 2) until midday on Christmas Eve. A festive event throughout Austria, Germany, parts of Switzerland and Alsace, these daily fairs offer all sorts of gifts, ornaments and crèche figures, along with dazzlements of food. Sputtering holiday sausages and silken goose liver, Christmas confections in marzipan, chestnuts and quince paste, St. Nicholas figures of wired prunes, pungent gingerbreads and cookies, and steaming hot clove-scented mulled glühwein — all fortify body and spirit against the dry, frosty night air.
Food markets offer colorful links to the economy, customs and even dialects of a city. They’re one of the few opportunities where visitors can glimpse locals going about one of their essential daily chores.