Channeling Charleston Day #5: High Society Saturday

Every Saturday during the spring and summer months, there is Farmer's Market in Marion Square. This place was PACKED.

I felt like I was in a high school hallway again. *shudder*

When I thought farmer's market, I thought there would just be a lot of fruit and vegetables. But it was so much more. There was a lot more food as well as a lot of art work for sale. I bought a lentil and pesto empanada. YUM! Empanadas are Argentine, by the way, not Mexican, so lentils are acceptable. There was also entertainment. FREE entertainment.  I watched a magic show for kids, but I thoroughly enjoyed it as well. How do they do it? Maybe I'll do a blog post exposing magic tricks. Hmm...

On my way to my second historical house tour in Charleston, I bought these: 

Roses made out of.....something. These roses have quite an interesting story. Poor kids, or kids that wanted to make money, would sell these all over Charleston. However, the Police started hassling the kids about selling them because they needed a business permit. Well, YES! Carolina, an organization that teaches youth about entrepreneurship that Darren works with, gave these kids a business permit. YES! So, after hearing this story, I saw kids selling them on King Street and bought some. 

My first official stop was the Nathaniel Russel House. 

This picture doesn't really show how huge it is, but it is a three-floor home with three main parts: the rectangle, the oval, and the square. I wish I could have taken pictures of the inside, but it was not allowed. Most of the house is either original or painted to portray the original. There is a twirling staircase all the way up to the third floor. I personally loved the molding of the rooms because it was ORIGINAL and ornate and way over the top. This house is definitely a unique piece of architecture, but also has aspects standard of its time. 

For lunch, I went to Tabbuli. 

I only include this because I'm telling you not to go here. It was good and the service was great, but it is not a good representative of middle-eastern/ mediterranean food, Americanized to the point that they might as well sell hamburgers. Their tabbuli, the NAME of their restaurant, wasn't even that good. There was not enough lemon nor enough olive oil and they tried too hard to make it an American  salad. Maybe I'm kind of a snob when it comes to this type of food, but I was a bit disappointed.  Taziki's is way better...and closer. 

On my way to my second destination, I passed a bakery. 

My sister had mentioned Saffron to me, so I decided to check it out. I don't know what's harder: choosing a spouse or choosing a dessert. 

You can understand why.

I decided on this lemony goodness:

But believe it or not, I have some self-restraint, for I did not devour this until after my tour of the Aiken-Rhett House. 

I hate signs and cars. They get in the way of every picture. But it's huge, as expected. It is not nearly as well-kept as the Nathaniel Russel residence, but has just as much awesome history. It goes into a lot more detail about slave life. It is an audio tour, so we all got mp3 players. It was a bit entertaining for a 60-yr old woman to describe how it worked. "The two lines...those two lines down there...that's to stop it. That triangle is to start it." Seeing three historical homes in Charleston, I have become much more aware of how differently people lived then and people lived now. It's difficult to believe it's the same world:

1. Guests were always entertained on the second floor. Guests never saw more than an entryway on the first floor. The first floor was used mainly for family purposes. Today, most of our entertaining is on the first floor of the home, and it usually takes place in the same places a family would spend time together (family room, kitchen, dining room, etc.) 19th century high society saw the need for a separation of family and guest facilities. 

2. 19th Century portrait of the Lady of the House. Most homes contain painted portraits of the lady of the house...usually the size of full bed. Today, we would think that to be a bit pretentious. Instead of a huge picture of your mom on the wall, today you are more likely to see family portraits everywhere. Like these gems:

I will never again see a normal rainbow.

I want to make this into a wallpaper.

Whatever he's doing, it seems to be working....that baby is OUT.

 There were a lot of semi-nude family photos; why? WOW, I get distracted quite easily. ANYWAYS.

3. The Kitchen is not a central place in the home.  In 19th Century Charleston, There were some fire safety codes about where you could put your kitchen for fear of, you guessed it, house fires.  Some houses had kitchens in the furthest back part of the home, while others had a separate building altogether. This is different because today because 1) we don't own slaves and 2) better fire prevention and appliances? But also, the kitchen today seems to be the most popular hang-out for an American family, usually connected with the family room, thus making it even more integral to the central part of the home. 

So, if you find yourself in Charleston, go to at least one house. They're pretty interesting, and these people were LOADED. Charleston is considered the NYC of Colonial America and time thereafter until, well, NYC became the NYC. Or perhaps when NYC became the Charleston.