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The Seattle skyline, with the iconic Space Needle against the backdrop of Mt Rainier, may be familiar from TV series including Frasier and Grey’s Anatomy, but it’s the city’s music scene that sent ripples across the world, through Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Jimi Hendrix.
“The music scene helped build Seattle’s liberal values,” says Nick, a guide for the Savour Seattle food tour of Pike’s Place Market. Today, Washington state allows same-sex marriage and recreational marijuana use. So long as you leave other people alone, you can pretty much choose to live how you like here. The multi-level Pike’s Place Market has been here since 1907. Most of the produce – cherries, blueberries, jams, wine, cheese – is made less than an hour from Seattle, on the other side of the mountains. The politics of the producers, however, couldn’t be more different from their metropolitan consumers.