Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007 - (Page 30)

makinG groceries butchers, fishmongers, and fruit or vegetable dealers. He based his bid on the costs and risks of stall rentals, fee collections, and the daily cleanup. As the system grew in size and complexity, the city council’s market ordinances followed suit. The Ordinance of 1869 contained 53 articles, each with multiple sections. It regulated everything from stall fees and scales to hours to vendors’ signs and the storage of boxes. Meat could not be brought into the market before 2 a.m. or after 5 a.m. To secure sales in the cool of the day, the entire market had to be shut down by noon, 10 a.m. in the summer. No sales could be made outside of the covered area; no fires allowed except for the heating of coffee and beverages; no spiritous liquors; no unwholesome meat, including underage calves, pigs or lambs; and no sale of oysters — this was a privilege of the oystersmen in their luggers on the levee. By the mid 19th century, the city’s food markets were big business for both the public treasury and the private economy. Deftly, city officials had financed construction of some of the buildings by having the farmer build the market in return for full stall revenues for up to eight years from construction. The city’s take from the markets grew from about $20,000 per year circa 1815 for the meat market alone to a similar take for each of eight additional markets by the 1850s. By then a thousand people worked as butchers or members of the meat trades, and thousands more produced or sold fruit and vegetables. In the 1880s, when the market leases were consolidated, the city’s revenue was approaching $200,000 a year. THE BOND OF MARKET FOLK Rights to a butcher stall in a major market were lucrative. Stall No. 1 of the Poydras, situated right at the entrance, sold for $1,400 in the mid-19th century, along with a horse and cart. The stall itself was worth some 14 times that of the other items. The value derived both from location and from the stand’s strong customer base. It was a given among vendors that once the customers became familiar with a butcher and liked the quality of his meat, they made a habit of returning. Stall rights were thus a tradable commodity, even though the city owned the property and the “farmer” held the lease. Some butchers handled only certain kinds of products, selected mainly at the Jefferson City Stock Landing or French Market scene from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated, late 19th century. 30 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Fall 2007 HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION These well-dispersed centers of food and society played an essential role in the city’s cultural, economic and political life.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

Contents Friends & Letters Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Big Charity: A History of New Orleans’ Public Hospital Historic New Orleans Collection Making Groceries: A History of New Orleans Markets New Orleans’ Faubourg Tremé: Rooted in Tradition Jazz Notes Louisiana Association of Museums Chinatown New Orleans Louisiana Foodways A Question of Secession Louisiana Architecture Louisiana State Museum The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish Terra Incognita Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

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