A Pittsburgh author’s new photo book is about the local grocers who transport food lovers to the far corners of the earth with cuisines from their home countries.
When I heard that Salim’s Middle Eastern Foods in Pittsburgh’s North Oakland neighborhood was closing after half a century, I started going there all the time.
Over the last two months before Salim El-Tahch’s retirement, I savored his unique Lebanese recipes: his red pepper dip, homemade yogurt, spinach and feta pastry, garlic spread, and inimitable rice pudding.
I’d sit tucked away between the clean wooden shelves of dry goods and the bright refrigerator cases. In my window view, buses and people passed by at a regular clip on Centre Avenue. I could hear Salim greeting his many cherished customers—relationships he’d built over decades.
The room was painted with murals that looked like Paradise, and I felt a kind of bliss in my belly.
In that room, a book idea was born.
“Keep an Eye on the Figs!: An Ode to Pittsburgh’s International Grocers” took me on a trip from homemade baba ganoush and imported anchovies in the Strip District to pear nectar and quesadillas in neighborhoods like Brookline to ginger and fine Chinese tea in Wilkinsburg and many eats and neighborhoods in between.
Middle Eastern grocer in Pittsburgh’s Strip District neighborhood (photo courtesy of Karen Lillis)
I didn’t have to wonder where to start—I’ve got at least five international markets between my house and my job. The foodmongers I visited feature distinctive tastes from their homeland or heritage—fruits, spices, and recipes from Beirut, Calabria, Italy; Hong Kong; Mexico City; Mumbai; Seoul; Istanbul; and the Jewish diaspora.
They offer delectable meals, fresh produce, and pantry delights, as well as aisles to get lost in and follow our senses to discover or rediscover forgotten family foods.
Many of these grocers arrived on our shores and wound up welcoming us into their transplanted home. They opened up shops to feed their families, and ended up nourishing ours.
We’re so lucky in this city to live in a confluence where the globe is continually mixing and co-existing, meeting and greeting—every single day.
Food has long been a useful language when there isn’t a common one—a sort of olive branch extended between less familiar cultures. To me, that makes the international grocer one of society’s great ambassadors, a merchant who gives us one of the more enticing ways to learn about each other.
As these grocery stores help demystify our differences, they help stabilize our community. The United States has often needed that assistance.
In Pittsburgh’s many international grocery stores, I get a sense of how vast our world is, and how small it can be. How special our co-existence is, and how sweet.
I hope we keep sharing the figs.
Keep an Eye on the Figs is available from Pittsburgh’s indie booksellers or online here.
