Jamaica Market - The Food

As I said in my last post, Mexico City's Jamaica Market is best known for its flowers, but there is much, much more to the market than that.  Before the advent of modern supermarkets, Mexican housewives would come to markets such as this to do their grocery shopping.  Here you will find an enormous variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and other food stuffs.

I can never resist taking photos of the produce stalls in Mexican markets.  They are so colorful.  There are all the fruits and vegetables that we know back home, but there are also others that are more exotic and some which are never seen north of the border.  There are some that even I cannot identify.

 

You could make a lot of guacamole with all those avocados!

Mexicans complain about the high cost of avocados, but at 40 pesos per kilo (2 dollars for over two pounds) the price seems reasonable to us gringos.

"Limones", which, unlike our lemons are green, are an essential part of Mexican cuisine.  You cannot have a taco without some juice from a wedge of "limón".

Mexicans are also complaining about how the price of "limones" has gone up, although $1.75 for over two pounds seems inexpensive to us.

In the front to the left are pomegranates.  Next to them, the "pera piña", as the name implies, is a variety of pear that tastes like a pineapple.  The "chirimoya", which I have never tasted nor which I have ever seen in our supermarkets in Ohio, is known in English as a custard apple.

White hominy is a major ingredient of the soup "pozole".

 

 A variety of dried "chile" peppers

Pastes for making different kinds of "mole" 

The owner of the stall gave me a taste of the "mole casero con piñón"... homemade "mole" with pine nuts.  It was quite delicious.

Candied fruits and vegetables such as figs, pumpkin and sweet potato are traditional for the Day of the Dead season.

Typical Mexican candies

There are a number of butchers' stalls.

Some of them might be a bit much for those with delicate sensibilities!

Every market has stalls where you can sit down and eat.

Generally, I do not eat in the markets, but "Carnitas Paty" is highly recommended, and I have eaten there several times without any ill effects.  They serve "tacos de carnitas" (chopped braised pork).  Just be sure to ask for "maciza"... normal cuts of pork... because there are many other pig parts, such as the snout, tongue or stomach, which you can order.

To drink, the specialty is "tepache", which is made with slightly fermented pineapple and Mexican brown sugar.

When I was done with my exploration of the market, I came here, sat down and ordered a taco and a glass of "tepache".

There is still more for me to report on the Jamaica Market.  After all, my primary purpose in coming here was to buy things for the Day of the Dead.