Central de Abasto

The Central de Abasto de la Ciudad de México is a huge wholesale market in the eastern part of Mexico City. When it first opened in the ´80s, nearly 80% of all the food consumed in Mexico passed through the market. These days it is down to about 20-30% due in no small part to the presence of Walmart in Mexico.

I went yesterday with two others, Lily and Vincent. I met Lily, a student at University of Chicago, when she showed up at Alpina wanting to see if there was any room, and ran into again randomly in a teashop in the center of San Angel. Vincent is from France and is staying in the same guesthouse Lily is living in for a couple of weeks.

We started in the seafood section, two longs passages filled with every type of seafood you can image, from fishes of all sizes to octopus to crabs and every part in between. We were overcome by the desire to take pictures, and so we became the strange tourists wandering around a market, a role I think is not often fulfilled. But it was a lot of fun asking the fish sellers if we could take their picture, holding up whatever ware they were selling. At the end of the line we split an octopus empanada, fried goodness with no quite enough octopus.

We wandered over to the other section of the market, probably hundreds of times larger. They sell everything from fruits and vegetables wholesale, to those who sell to normal people (not just by the crate) to meat, to "abarrotes" or stuff basically, and many other things we probably didn't see. We didn't get to the market until about 12pm so we missed the wholesale rush which is said to take place in the early mornings, but the place was still quite overwhelming.

On the way from the fish market to the rest, we stopped at a stand with several fruits we had never seen before. I still don't remember the names, but the woman who owned the stand offered to let us taste one that is kind of like a passionfruit, but small and green, and a root that reminds me of manioc, but likely is not.

In the market, in aisle M, we found $1 peso watermelon for sale. Deciding to buy some, and of course putting chili on top as the Mexicans do (quite good actually...), we struck up a conversation with some of the guys working at the stall. After some pictures, some translation and another free piece of watermelon, we made friends with Enrique, the sandiero (watermelon salesman). So let me know if you ever have a need to buy watermelon in bulk.

We wandered for another hour or so, encountered people selling fruit in bulk, people selling fruit to normal people (instead of by crate, they sell it by kilogram), bought some squash blossoms, smooth avocados, granadas and various types of garlic. We saw pig heads, intestines and other things, got agua frescas (I got passionfruit and strawberry--amazing combination!) and split a huareche with squash blossoms and "corn mushrooms" (huitlacoches), which was great.

We missed the craziness that would be early morning shopping for restaurants, food stands and everyone else, but we still experienced the vastness of the market and had a lot of fun exploring the area. Not many people visit Central de Abasto, but I would highly recommend it. It's fun being the only tourists in a place!