In an aisle on the Arch Street flank of the Reading Terminal Market last week, Paul Steinke, the general manager, could be observed in animated conversation with Michael Holahan, who runs a stall called the Pennsylvania General Store.

Steinke was describing a serviceable meal he'd had with his mother recently at Nicholl's Seafood, the Rhawnhurst restaurant, the highlight of which was not the fish so much as the pepper hash, a juicy cabbage-pepper slaw.

Sweet pepper hash is one of those particularly Philadelphian food traditions, slipping away now, not unlike that fading odd couple - fried oysters and chicken salad.

Anyway, Steinke wondered aloud whether a "Festival of Vanishing Foods" might play at the market, to which Holahan said it sounded good to him - at first blush, at least.

The mind races. The buffet would start with soup, of course, a choice of pepper pot (perhaps the peppery West Indies-inspired broth they've re-created at City Tavern) or snapper - dark, earthy bowls of which have always been a sure sign here that, well, you weren't in Kansas anymore.

A hefty douse of sherry would be obligatory. But guests could be invited to weigh in on the eternal question: chopped egg garnish, or not?

This might also serve as a corrective. There is a misconception, among newcomers especially, that "snapper" refers to the red fish, not the brawling snapping turtle that substitutes for the original terrapin and green sea turtle.

Some oysters would be nice, maybe even before the soup. Oyster saloons were once as pervasive in Philadelphia as pizza joints are now: Delaware Bay's oysters never had the PR of the Chesapeake's. But before parasites and overharvesting thinned their ranks, they were mighty and prolific.

The comeback oyster? The Cape May Salt, a plump and meaty contender, making its wobbly stand in the saltier bay water north of Cape May.

A salad: The impossibly tender early-season "Jersey dandelions" found only at Petronglo Farms near Vineland toward the end of March. Maybe, as a grilled accompaniment, foraged ramps, a sort of wild garlic?

They don't match up seasonally, but in an autumn running of the festival, it might be nice to showcase the pawpaw - the largest native American fruit - which can still be found along local riverbanks, or at a patch in Langhorne. The flavor is a lush, custardy mix of banana and mango, with a hint of vanilla in the nose; one taste of a properly ripened pawpaw and no explanation is needed as to why it deserves to survive.

Fish course (spring): The bluefish-flavored shad and its bacon-wrapped roe that were the toast of Fishtown (which is having its first Shad Fest in Penn Treaty Park on Saturday) before the white man came, and the Delaware turned toxic. It's on the mend now - the river - but April shad is generally from down South.

And maybe some sturgeon; it used to be big down near Penns Grove until the late 1880s, when caviar lust led to its commercial extinction. So sturgeon is mostly past tense, except for farmed fish from the West Coast.

That might already be the culinary status of another old standard, fried catfish and waffles. If anyone finds them, note the e-mail address below.

Meat course (fall): Heritage turkey, closer in flavor to the original wild birds, staying one step ahead of eradication on several small Pennsylvania farms. Tangy heirloom cranberries , being nursed back to life at the Paradise Hill bogs in the Pinelands, would make a nice side. And certainly Cope's Corn, the toasted dried sweet corn now made by one last company - Cope's in Rheems, Pa. And vintage, original-recipe beer (Thomas Jefferson Ale, for one), being reissued at Yards Brewery.

Shane's Candies on lower Market Street could contribute molasses strips and butter creams. The Amish, their vast repertoire of jarred chow chows, pickles, and cabbage-stuffed baby peppers. From Haegele's Bakery in Mayfair, butter cakes and springerle cookies. From Dietrich's in Krumsville, Berks County, there could be a parade of Pennsylvania Dutch pies - black walnut custard and cherry crumb, and black raspberry and shoofly - their crusts tender from the lard rendered from hog-butchering. (And various lard-cooked, small-batch potato chips, staples in the fat-unconscious hinterlands.)

Etc.: Toasted cornmeal from Lancaster County, imperative for the best scrapple. And cornmeal mush, Philadelphia's own polenta. Teaberry ice cream, and Wilbur Buds, the dark-chocolate forerunner of the Hershey's Kiss.

These are, to crib the title of Mark Kurlansky's new book, "the food of a younger land." Not necessarily superior foods: The Vietnamese spring roll hadn't even made landfall yet.

But they are part of our culinary DNA, part of our shared pantry, part of what makes this place this place.

And if we don't have a catchy name for them (on the order, say, of Tex-Mex or Cajun or Cal-Ital), that could be the first job of a Festival of Vanishing Foods.

Coming up with one.

Contact columnist Rick Nichols at 215-854-2715 or rnichols@phillynews.com. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/ricknichols.