Of mangos and the mercado

I love chocolate. Milk chocolate, preferably, without distracting extras (although toffee or salted caramel chunks are occasionally welcome). I also love ice cream, make a ton of it in the summertime, and rarely, if ever, choose to purchase flavors other than coffee or chocolate. Generally, I like fruit in desserts when it is chocolate covered or encrusted. But otherwise, I agree with my friend Megan who says, “don’t spoil my dessert with fruit!” 

Somehow, perhaps because we’re in South America, there are many things here that are completely opposite the way they are at home. Such as: I drink multiple cups of coffee in the morning now, while Sam has actually forgotten to consume it on several occasions. Sam is always cold, while I’m walking around in short-sleeved shirts. And whenever we have the opportunity to have ice cream, I always get a fruit flavor like maracuyá (passionfruit) or lúcuma (not sure there is an English equivalent). The coffee and chocolate don’t appeal to me at all. And the fruit flavors are amazing!

And what’s more, even when we’ve had fabulous chocolate in our apartment for the taking, I keep opting for a mango (or two!) for dessert. What’s going on?!?

We buy several kilos of mangos every time we go to the mercado near our apartment. The price has been steadily dropping over the last two months and right now I can buy them for 3 soles per kilo. That is less than 50 cents a pound! I’m not sure what they would go for in the States at present, but somehow I think I’d pay far more for the quantity and quality of fruit we’re buying.

I like going to the market, for the most part. 

The panadería just outside the mercado is open twice a day, for about an hour and a half each; perfectly timed to the start and end of the nearby school’s day. Even now, during summer vacation, a line starts forming about a half hour before it opens! Sam says that not only are they good, they are the cheapest he’s found. That might be because of the sign outside that says, “thank you for bringing your own bags.” 

Finally, open for business!

I had been hoping to get a photo of people waiting in line and one day, luck struck! So I grabbed my camera and took the photo. I happened to also be wearing Simon in the sling and was carrying three giant, heavy bags of fruit and produce at the same time. So everyone was watching me juggle the bags, the boy, and the camera. You can see some of the people in the photo staring at me as if to say, you're taking a photo of us? You are the weird one!  

At our market, the newspaper stand is at the main entrance. People stop at the puestos and read the headlines. Once in a while, a paper is actually purchased. What I find funny is that the TV news programs also show each of the newspapers’ front pages during their broadcast: they slowly scan down the page so that you can get the gist of everyone’s news even if you don’t watch more of the broadcast or buy the paper. 

Reading the headlines

Puestos with newspapers and candy are on every other corner, it seems. There appear to be about 15 different papers, although some are more akin to a mix between the National Enquirer and Us magazine, than, say, the New York Times. You can usually buy candy there too. 

While this puesto is not at our mercado, I'm including it here as the best example of the newspaper puestos around. It is PACKED with papers!

Note the effective use of all the available surface area... and then some, hanging even more papers from the top of the roof/lid/door

The back view... I am impressed by this vendor's display, although I would quickly develop claustrophobia if I had to sit inside of this puesto each day, all day!

A slightly more representative newspaper puesto, still claustrophobia-inducing

There are two fruit stalls on the outside of the market with excellent prices, and the women who run the stalls can’t stand one another. They fiercely compete for each other’s business. I slightly dread having to choose one although I admit that I also exploit their competition. I usually ask about the price of mangos per kilo as I’m walking by and the other one will gesture or call her price out to me. The one I favor most of the time flashes me the price she’ll give me with her fingers against her chest, as if it were a gang sign: 3 soles per kilo, señora.

I choose her more often for several reasons. She is friendlier; gives me a slightly better price, most of the time; doesn’t switch the price on me and pretend I’ve just misunderstood (although she always loads more into my bag than I’ve ordered,3.5 kilos instead of 3 kilos, for example); and gives me tiny bananas, free, “for the baby”. Sometimes she just hands them to me as she’s handing me my bags; other times she gives me a bunch as I’m walking by but not buying anything. This is definitely an effective way to keep my business!

However, she’s also told me that she is giving me an excellent price, since inside the mercado, mangos cost 6 soles per kilo. I thanked her profusely for giving me such a great deal, then promptly went inside and asked several vendors for their mango prices. Everyone was consistent at 4 soles per kilo. Thus I take her comments with a grain of salt.

This is one of the fruit stands where I comparison-shop for mangos.

Here's another. On my to-do list is to try the jugos at the stand on the right.

Down the middle of a corridor

I’m still getting the hang of what products are purchased from which type of vendor. The limes, which are called limones, you buy at the vegetable vendors. The lemons, which are called limas, are purchased at the fruit vendors. Same with palta, avocado. That all – the names as well as the place you purchase each – seems backwards to me! The spice lady also sells queso fresco, fresh cheese. Almost every non-fruit and vegetable vendor sells fresh olives. Something fabulous is that depending on what I’m buying (avocado and chirimoya are the two that come to mind), the vendor will ask if I want it for today or tomorrow and then select the fruit accordingly. 

Somehow I’ve fallen into a routine of buying my items from specific vendors: fruit vendor, vegetable vendor, egg-and-paper-products vendor, rice-and-dried-fruit-and-nearly-everything-else-under-the-sun vendor. There are probably 50 more stalls that I really haven’t checked out yet. I haven’t yet had the guts (no pun intended) to buy meat yet.

This vendor sells everything you need for several different soups, including all of the salsas

Two puestos with identical products, from toilet paper to chifles (fried plantain chips)

This vendor is my catch-all shop in the mercado and has incredible dried pears, apricots, roasted & salted peanuts.... and black olives, of course

Fresh fish

Grab some toilet paper to go along with your red meat...

I'm not sure what that is! I'll just keep walking along...

This is my favorite vegetable vendor. Half the time she has to stand on the stool pictured to get something down from the top shelves... and then she hacks it down to the desired size with her machete

The egg lady... with a zillion other miscellaneous products

While you buy from each vendor individually, there is a lot of trading that goes on. The first time I went to the market, I went to a woman who had giant bags of rice out and asked her if she sold brown rice. Yes! How much did I want? A kilo, I guessed. She stepped out from behind her bags, scurried down the hallway and disappeared around the corner. She came back with a 1-kilo bag of brown rice. Another time I asked a different vendor whether he had raw kiwicha, amaranth. Of course! he said, and excused himself for a moment while he bought it from the stand next to his. 

I’m not sure why they don’t simply direct me to the vendor who currently possesses the product; they aren’t marking up the price at all (I’ve checked!). Between vendors who get along, there is also a lot of borrowing and lending of change to give to clients. It is incredible how everyone can keep straight how much they are owed and how much they owe; I barely can keep up with how much I should be paying at each puesto!

I am slowly realizing that I can get almost all of the things at the mercado that I thought I had to schlep to the supermarket, a 25 minute walk, to buy. The plusses of the supermarket are that I can pay with a credit card and don’t have to haggle over prices. Two plusses of the mercado are that it is two blocks from my house and everything is fresh and high-quality.

While the mangos are delicious, flavorful, and huge, there is still room in my heart – and stomach – for chocolate with some frequency. The best chocolate, however, is not available at the mercado or the supermarket. It is found in elusive care packages from our moms that occasionally arrive when the Peruvian postal service decides to let one through!