In 2020 and early 2021, the Peale participated in the Lexington Market Public History Initiative in an effort to collect stories and memories about the world-famous Lexington Market as the market itself prepared for a redesign and reopening. The initiative’s core partners were Baltimore Heritage, Baltimore Public Markets Corporation, Lexington Market, Inc., Market Center Community Development Corporation, Seawall, and the Peale, and the work was partially enabled by a Pathways Grant from the Maryland Center for History and Culture. This project was financed in part by the Maryland Center for History and Culture’s Thomas V. “Mike” Miller History Fund.
"My name is Alisha Patterson, and this is a story about a visit my family took to Lexington Market. This took place about four or five years ago. My parents were in town for a visit, and one of the things that my father and I would do, when I was growing up is a fish fry. We would pick up the fish and we would then bread it and fry it up and that was a real event for my entire family, but it was a real event for my father and I, because it was a way for us to bond and talk and check-in with one another. That was in both Maryland and we then moved to Columbus, Ohio. So we kept that tradition going strong in Ohio, although the fish experience there was a little bit different because the fish from the grocery store was usually frozen, but in Maryland, when I was a little girl, we would bring one of those large red coolers down to the fish market in DC, and we would pack it up.
So my father would go to the different vendors at the Wharf and select the fish that he wanted. Then he would have them take the scales off and gut it and then we'd pack it with ice into the cooler and be on our merry way, back to Waldorf, Maryland, where we lived and we would have fish. He would stuff it, he would fry it. He would do all these wonderful things. Fast forward to many years later, and I left Ohio and came back to Maryland, which always felt like home and my parents came for a visit and we wanted to do a fish fry. We were in Baltimore, so we weren't going to drive to the Wharf, but we heard about Lexington Market.
So we went to Lexington Market and just walked around, enjoying the sights, the smells, the people, the selection of fish, and finally settled on the fish that we wanted to bring back and fry up, and it was wonderful. We were able to get a nice selection of different types of fish that we enjoy eating. As an extra bonus, my family expanded, I have two children now, so we were able to share this tradition with my father's grandchildren and, of course, my children. So that was our Lexington Market experience. Being able to get fresh fish, that we were able to fry. It's an important family tradition that we were able to share with the next generation of my family. So thank you, Lexington Market for keeping that tradition alive."
Asset ID: 2021.01.10
Photo of Lexington Market, ca. 1903, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
