What is a Market?
What does it do?
Who does it serve?
What is its purpose?
Throughout history, the idea of a market has supposedly been a local event that involved the community members of a specific society or environment.
During the Middle Ages (c. 400-1500 A.D.), markets only involved those who could travel to where the market was held (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica). This obviously shows why markets were held at a smaller scale and included only a certain group of people because travel time and distance was limited. Back then, people traveled by foot or maybe an animal if they could afford one. Thus, markets had an intimate atmosphere as they often included the same people who attended every event. But, of course, there were merchants and explorers who traveled long distances, traveled among a more global market, to broaden the spectrum of items, spices, etc. that were found back home. It was "the quest for new customers [that] led merchants on daring treks across uncharted landscapes; the Spice Route, the Silk Route were trails blazed across history by entrepreneurs going forth in the name of God" (Lewis, 9). However, this was not the norm for the regular market goers. They traveled only to their market, and were only exposed to what they could see in front of them.
During the age of the New World, the European colonization of the Americas, the idea of a market began to change. The global market had a larger impact on what could be sold and purchased by individuals with the start of colonial ports. With trade came more products and goods, and more exposure to what the world had to offer. "The New World Promised new markets and new lifestyles... the unloading of Old World inventory to enrich the New; the loading of New World produce to enhance the Old" (Lewis, 10). Community members went to the market to explore the items that had traveled to them. They were there to learn and discover but have always been confined by financial, geographical, and social limitations.
However, today, markets have become hyper-commercialized branches of larger corporations, and the knowledge of where food comes from has been lost within the increase of processed foods and the seemingly never ending age of fast food.
When reading this, think about the experiences that you've had wherever you may go to purchase your food. Is it a local farmer's market? Is it supermarket? Where do you think your food comes from?
