I wrote earlier that I needed to go to the San Juan Handicraft Market once again. This past week I took the Metrobus and then walked a few blocks to the market. On my way I passed the nearby San Juan Food Market. I had been there once before (and I may have already written a blog post about it), but I decided pop in for a quick look around.
The market building with its graffiti-covered walls is not very impressive.
When you walk inside and see the stalls full of fruits and vegetables, at first you think that this is like any other market.
But this is a very different market... this is the gourmet market where restaurant chefs come to shop for their ingredients. There are stalls of imported meats and cheeses and Asian food products.
The San Juan Market goes beyond being a gourmet market. It is a market of exotic foods... some would say of revolting foods.
Look at the products for sale at this stall...
Here you can buy a taco or hamburger made with venison, ostrich, buffalo or wild boar. OK, I can handle that. There are also stalls that sell crocodile or lion meat. Well I am not so sure about that. Besides, are those endangered animals?
But then you can go beyond exotic and go for a pre-Hispanic diet of insects. You perhaps already know that roasted grasshoppers are a popular snack in Mexico. But they also offer "escamoles" (ant larvae... they have been nicknamed "Mexican caviar), "chinicuiles" and "gusanos blancos" (caterpillars that infest the agave plant... like the worms that are sometimes put in a bottle of mezcal), "hormigas chicatanas" (leaf-cutter ants), "cocopache" (an insect related to the cicada), scorpions (oh my!), and perhaps most disgusting of all "cucarachas de Madagascar" (Madagascar hissing cockroaches).
In another stall they had some samples on display.
I know that insects are full of protein, and in a world in which food is scarce they say that insects are the wave of the future. But, no thank you!
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