Cleveland's West Side Market: 100 Years & Still Cooking

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Cleveland’s West Side Market
100 Years & Still Cooking
The Fascinating Life and Times of an American Public Market

By Laura Taxel and Marilou Suszko

Cleveland's West Side Market: 100 Years & Still Cooking chronicles the history of one of the oldest municipally-owned and -operated retail food markets in America. In continuous use since it opened in 1912, it is a matchless culinary and cultural

resource, a nationally significant architectural treasure, and part of the city's distinctive urban landscape. There are only a handful of such places left in the country but none as grand or as beautiful. The book takes readers on a tour of the building and into the lives of vendors, loyal employees and multi-generation Market families— who are the heart and soul of this public space. Immigrants on both sides of the counter have influenced what's sold here. Readers will discover a whole world of foods, traditions, and rituals that are part of the Market culture and enjoy humorous, touching, and sometimes bawdy stories of what it was like to grow up, grow old, and carve out a living at the Market. The volume is rich with vintage and contemporary photographs that provide a delightful armchair tour of this magnificent landmark, which is loved by shoppers and chefs, including Michael Symon who wrote the foreword, and is a must-see destination for food lovers no matter where they live. Cleveland's West Side Market
100 Years & Still Cooking
Laura Taxel & Marilou Suszko
Foreword by Michael Symon
Pages: 250; Size: 8.5" x 11"
Imprint: Ringtaw Books, University of Akron Press
ISBN: 978-1-931968-94-2
Jacketed Hardcover
Price: $39.95

Author Bios
Laura Taxel reviews restaurants and writes about chefs and winemakers; food, beverage and dining trends; and culinary movers, shakers and innovators for local and national publications. Her articles appear in Cleveland Magazine, Edible Cleveland, Cooking Light, The National Culinary Review, Sommelier Journal, and Culture. In an award winning career that spans 25 years she’s also been published in the Plain Dealer, Continental, the in-flight magazine of Continental Airlines, Mother Earth News, Natural Health, Luxury Living, Ohio Magazine, Inside Business, Smart Business and Santé. Her work was chosen three times for the annual anthology The Best Food Writing. She is also the author of Cleveland Ethnic Eats, a bestselling guide to northeast Ohio's most authentic ethnic restaurants and markets.. Marilou Suszko is a local food writer, culinary instructor, and author of two books, Farms and Foods of Ohio: From Garden Gate to Dinner Plate (Hippocrene 2007) and The Locavore’s Kitchen (Swallow Press 2011), both of which highlight local agriculture, farms, farmers, and seasonal foods. Her work has been published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Our Ohio, regional and national publications. She hosts From My Ohio Kitchen on segments of Our Ohio (PBS).
[All photos should be credited to Barney Taxel, Taxel Image Group, Cleveland, Ohio.]


Also available for booking November 1, 2012

The West Side Market: 100 Years and Still Cooking
A Virtual Tour
For library audiences, civic groups, organizations and more, this one hour visual tour of the Market introduces a historical and nostalgic tour of the building, the people and foods that have made this place the building, people, and foods provides a snapshot of the libraries, civic groups, organizations and more, this power point presentation guides viewers through the history or the building, people and foods that make the West Side Market so distinct and memorable with vintage and historical photos, stories and account, some of which do not appear in the book.

Our beloved West Side Market is in trouble. If you qualify, take the survey from The Project For Public Spaces and consi...
21/01/2020

Our beloved West Side Market is in trouble. If you qualify, take the survey from The Project For Public Spaces and consider taking the market management training workshop. Please the link on to others who might be interested.

Vermilion's St. Mary fifth grade students carry on the Market tradition of meeting "under the steer head." Marilou Suszk...
15/04/2016

Vermilion's St. Mary fifth grade students carry on the Market tradition of meeting "under the steer head." Marilou Suszko has been sharing the history of the West Side Market with local grade schools followed by a visit to this historic landmark. Priming the next generation of shoppers.

Source local meat at WSM.
01/04/2016

Source local meat at WSM.

Almost every one of these- and many many more from private collections and personal scrapbooks- appears in our book, Cle...
08/03/2016

Almost every one of these- and many many more from private collections and personal scrapbooks- appears in our book, Cleveland's West Side Market: 100 Years & Still Cooking

The Cleveland Memory Project, one of the coolest Cleveland photo archives around, was holding onto this awesome batch of vintage West Side Market photos. Clearly,...

Herman Matzen created the sculptures that adorn the East and West facades of the market, the pieces that appear around e...
15/07/2015

Herman Matzen created the sculptures that adorn the East and West facades of the market, the pieces that appear around exterior doorways, and atop the columns throughout the interior of the building.

Acclaimed sculptor Herman N. Matzen (Sec. 11, Lot 184) was born in Denmark, on this day in 1861. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, and then taught sculpture and design at The Cleveland Institute of Art for forty years. Matzen sculpted many Cleveland public monuments. At Lake View Cemetery, he created the Haserot Angel and the Collinwood School Fire Memorial. Matzen passed away in 1938.

Three things you can count on. Death. Taxes. And the ongoing debate over hours and parking.  Change at the Market is slo...
17/06/2015

Three things you can count on. Death. Taxes. And the ongoing debate over hours and parking. Change at the Market is slow and never easy.

Girding itself for controversy, the city of Cleveland is pushing ahead with a series of potential changes in and around the century-old West Side Market.

01/06/2015

We got this fan mail message and with it came more details about one of the fascinating Market characters in the book- Tony the Bag Man. Just had to share it.
I received West Side Market 100 Years and Still Cooking as a gift from my husband. What a wonderful beautiful book you wrote. [Barney Taxel's] pictures were outstanding! This book captured past and present of the market. But the most special part of this book for me was the article on my dad, Tony La Nasa (Tony the Bag Man) as he was referred too. Even through my dad was not original vendor, his parents were. My grandparents had a fruit and vegetable stand. My grandfather is in the picture of the original vendors, thank you for that. Dad decided to be on his own and started selling coal to the vendors to heat their pot belly stoves and then selling bags to put the coal in and then selling bags and butcher paper, etc to the vendors. My dad loved the market and the market provided us with a wonderful life. As my mom would say, if the market was opened on Sunday, your father would be there! I have wonderful memories of the market and the food you can't beat. My father was the hardest working man I will ever know. Thank you again for wonderful memories and if you ever write another book about the market, please contact me. Thank you.
Donna (La Nasa) Marko

Where basketball, food and Cleveland tradition meet.
27/05/2015

Where basketball, food and Cleveland tradition meet.

Cavs point guard Matthew Dellavedova meets us at the West Side Market in Cleveland.

If you see this, you're likely already a fan of the West Side Market, which is on the list, (and maybe of our book about...
12/05/2015

If you see this, you're likely already a fan of the West Side Market, which is on the list, (and maybe of our book about it too.) But there are twelve others, according to Thrillist, that might be worth adding to your destination list.

Where else are you going to watch a crab derby?

28/03/2015

Cleveland's West Side Market: 100 Years and Still Cooking is now out in paperback. Our publisher will no longer be printing the hardback version but we still have some- not many. Message us if you'd like to purchase one copy or a few. We'll give you a discounted price.

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