El mercado 9th de Octubre

This morning is shopping and supplies day for La Libertad. I prepared my lecture for this afternoon yesterday just so I could find the time to join the students at the market downtown on a Sunday morning. It was worth all the effort.

Walking with Betsy and Alex along the narrow sidewalks hard up beside huge buses roaring by on the cobbled pavements and the smell of diesel exhaust mixing with fresh baked bread. Elizabeth and Betsy discovered the market were heading to earlier in the week and it is a new one for me, el mercado 9th de Octubre. Like so many streets here it is named after an independence day, an anniversary, a special event. Coral says thats how Ecuadorians remember all their holidays. And truly it was a little like a holiday visiting el mercado 9th de Octubre.

Three floors of animal and vegetable commerce. The plaster white walls and airy sunlight filtering through the windows above contrasting with the rainbow explosion of color and blur of people cramming the aisles. As our list includes everything from maracuya to choclo corn, avocados to onions, and many things more we made our way from row to row of stalls in care. As always Im giddy with the sensory overload of the market. A barter here and a barter there, a check off our list and new discoveries of exotic shiny delicious mana around every turn. Above the whole scene an askew frame of Jesus sits propped up beside heaps of bananas gazing piously down on the commotion below. What I love about markets and markets in the tropics particularly is the motion of senses and the intimacy of ritual. The ritual of producing, selling, buying, eating, sharing, enjoying food. The cycle and the process. Perhaps the most intimate thing we do daily is eating. Nourishing our bodies, souls? Maybe, perhaps it is why food and markets speak to me so strongly.

With the last mark off our list we went to explore the mezzanine on an almuerza adventure. I cannot help but grin back at the ironic Shakespearean smile of the huge hog splayed out and roasting on the spit. He seems to be encouraging me to have a taste in a macabre sort of way, or maybe thats just the lady carving him up. There are juice sellers cajoling and diners at small tables engrossed in heaping plates of Ecuadorian tipicas. With little persuasion we are herded to an encobollitas niche and I had the best meal Ive had so far in this country. A heaping bowl of stew full of fish, onions, yucca; homemade plantain chips and big choclo corn kernels garnishing the scene. Washed down with a cup of hand squeezed lime juice and it is.

Ricisimo ridiculoso.. Verdad!

..but the foodie rant doesnt end there. After my lecture in the afternoon it was my night to cook. It began with a salad of romaine and spinach greens, mushrooms, peppers, palmitas, and goat cheese. It was given life by the quinnoa risotto I made cooked in vegetable broth and white wine with a side of French bread. It finished with a block of dark chocolate straight from Los Rios passed around the table. The ritual and the process from idea to fruition, courtesy el mercado 9th de Octubre.