Chickens for Sale at the Merced

 

Hats at the Merced

 

Butcher Shop at the Merced

 

Merced

 

Visit to the Market

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Today we met Jan and Dave Rooney at their apartment in the west end of Oaxaca to visit the Merced de Abastos, the largest outdoor marketplace in Oaxaca. In size, this place compares to the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul without the order or organization.

Perhaps a thousand merchants sell every imaginable product under an innumerable assortment of tin roofs and tarpaulins. Joining them is the humanity of Oaxaca intent on driving the best bargains for their household needs. By noon, it is near impossible to move down the improvised aisles.

Merchants of similar products seem to coalesce in the same area. Thus, you will encounter dozens of booths selling pottery. It strikes me that this is the same pottery than would be pictured in anthropology textbooks. In fact, I am quite sure that people have been making this very same product for the last thousand years. The Oaxacan Valley is famous for a certain black pottery which forms a natural sheen when fired. There is also a green variety that is quite attractive. To me, this pottery may be purchased in a limited quantity for decorative purposes but the massive supply on hand this morning suggest a broader use by the local population.

Adjoining the potters, were the cabinetmakers who were not only selling product but were manufacturing at the same time. The product was fairly rudimentary in quality reflecting the tools at hand. Picture household furnishings from three hundred years ago and you will see this same quality of furniture at the Merced.

One need not move far to encounter the livestock. Live pigs and goats are on display awaiting a new owner. Right next to the goats was a broad selection of mattresses and chesterfields neatly arrayed down the length of a city street that had been closed for the day. After a day at the market, a nice new bed maybe the perfect acquisition.

The food stalls covered a large part of the market and they were the most intriguing to me. The quantity of foods available in Mexico is just enormous. Each vendor seems to have a booth roughly ten feet square surrounded on three sides by display tables and on the fourth by the next vendor. The vendor is contained within the confines of her tables and virtually all vendors are women. Every inch of the tables is covered with pyramids of produce. Some vendors specialize in produce such as string beans, potatoes, tomatoes, radishes and cucumbers. Other merchants specialize in chiles and display huge sacks of dried varieties totally unknown to me. We spend no time at these booths negotiating any purchases.

The variety and freshness of the fruit at other stalls was truly mouth watering. The strawberries and bananas caught our attention and we quickly stocked up. Across from the fruit vendors was the butcher with a dozen or so carcasses hanging from the front of his booth. Skilled butchers were busy carving the thinnest veneers of beef and pork for waiting customers. Chickens were sold by a separate group of merchants. Naked corpses lay in piles in the open air with stiffened feet pointing outwards. The chickens in Mexico have a peculiar yellow cast compared to the white skinned chicken more familiar in the U.S.A. and Canada.  This peculiar coloring can’t be from eating corn, since Mexican corn is decidedly white.

Cheese is a popular product at the mercado. If you like cheese, you get only once choice here. It is a white cheese, stringy in consistency and very salty. It must be very popular since no end of merchants had it on offer.

My favourite area was reserved for the bakers. I have never seen so many breads and pastries convene in one place before. Mountains of breads and rolls bury acres of tables. The pastries, of every imaginable variety, taunt us with imagined sweetness. We succumb and realize that Krispy Kreme and Tim Horton’s have a lot to learn.

For a couple of hours, we wander randomly through this maize never once finding a perimeter. Does this place never end? I decide to find a washroom and leave my friends at an outdoor restaurant. The washroom, I am told, is just around the corner to the left. I can’t find it so ask someone else. “Just around the corner to the left”. I can’t find it so I ask again. “Just around the corner to the left”. By now, I fear never finding my friends again so give up the quest and double back. It was like been in a forest where every tree looks the same. I should have remembered to grab a loaf of bread and spread crumbs along my route. Fortunately, after numerous false starts, familiar faces appeared.
In addition to the merchandise already noted, we saw coins, raw sugar, machetes, motorcycles, straw hats and baskets, toys, videos, tools, clothing, rugs, woven blankets, drugs, mole sauces, nuts, religious artifacts, kitchen appliances, leather goods and trading cards. Except for automobiles, I am sure I saw every imaginable consumable at this mercado. Surprisingly, I doubt that I saw even twenty percent of the offerings.

Merced