mexico’s mercado valle de bravo

Close your eyes and imagine it. Come with me. The smells are there. All sorts of them: fresh spicy radishes laid out on a wool blanket for all to see and buy, sizzling tacos of unknown meats and sausages, corn tortillas toasting on a cast iron griddle and the citrus freshness of plump limes whose juice is constantly drizzled over everything. This is the de Mercado Valle de Bravo in Mexico: a Sunday market housed in a cramped labyrinth of tiny stalls connected by a roof made of blue plastic feigning the sky. It is an infinitely raw and vibrant world nestled within Valle de Bravo, a scenic vacation town of picturesque cobble stone roads and a breathtaking lake where tourists enjoy mountain fresh air and sit and eat trucha fresca, fresh trout, and escape the pollution and population of Mexico City. Steps away from such manicured tourism there lives this world of the mercado, its blue lit alley beckons those who dare enter it, and of course, taking that sharp left and following the locals and stray dogs seemed the obvious choice for my husband and I.

It was crowded and sweaty and lively and wondrous. Men carried sacks filled with blender parts, indigenous women sprawled on the dirt floor were selling woven baskets, bright green nopale (cactus) leaves, and action figure dolls that saw their heyday in the early eighties. They were all there.

The local butcher chopped yellow chickens that peered at me with eyes still open. I knew they hadn’t lived a life in a windowless, cramped coop but rather roamed a field picking worms most likely hours ago. And then, the famous taquerias, or taco stands: they were everywhere, lacing together this maze of shopping. The sound of meat sizzled throughout the market like an orchestra: carnitas, tacos de carne, de barbacoa.

Freshly grilled meat is chopped on a tronco, a big slab of wood resembling a tree trunk and in the air there floats a thick smoke of flavor that would stubbornly land on your clothing and refuse to leave, so much so that, even if you didn’t stop at one of the plastic tables for a quick bite, the food traveled with you.

Speckled throughout the market where the fruit carts. Gloriously colorful cups loaded with chunks of freshly chopped tropical delights: pineapple, watermelon, sapote, and of course, mango. Mango is a celebrated fruit in Mexico and rightly so: every mango I’ve ever eaten there is a memorable exchange between my palate and my memory: smooth, juicy and bursting with flavor, there isn’t one fiber to be found, just fleshy fruit generous with juice. And here, Mexican’s have defied all logic and introduced this sweetness with a spicy bite: adding their homemade assortments of chile sauces and powders, they take cups of the chopped chunks of golden mango and drizzle and sprinkle and drizzle and sprinkle and drizzle some more.

I am intoxicated by this market. I am in love. Camera in hand, I cannot stop being there. I want to see, smell, and eat everything. The locals all stare at me curiously. I am a guera, a slang term for someone blonde, blue-eyed and fair-skinned- unheard of in this wave of Aztec rich complexion and dark eyes. We are drawn together for our differences, the local market folk and I. I long to be a part of them, and they quietly take me in, accepting me into this underworld of theirs, this weekly ritual they will forget today but I will carry with me forever.

The mango girl smiles at me and my camera. “Como lo quieres” she asks? How do you want it? And then she dares me, “Con todo?” With everything?

And of course, because I know no other answer when it comes to food, I reply, “Si, todo” and she begins the procession with my fabulous cup of diced mango (which she has rinsed in a dirty red bucket filled with suspiciously grey water). She drizzles and sprinkles and drizzles again. This chile powder and that chile sauce. I ask her several times what it is and she tells me. But I cannot catch the names. I am a fluent Spanish speaker but this simply isn’t enough: there is the cadence of the speech, soft, courteous and rhythmic and then the many Aztec names weaved into a Mexican’s Spanish. They slip off my memory in their foreign sounds. I do understand that the last cayenne-colored sprinkle comes specially homemade from some region in Mexico, whose name, again, evades me, but by the shine in her eye I know, this is the good stuff.

I take the cup from her with a smile and a big gracias and then, as if by intuition, I close my eyes. I am circled by life. I smell the street, the dogs, the sounds of bartering, the clang of pots, and I hold a cold cup of precious fruit sprinkled with Mexican secrets for my taking. It is a moment I want to freeze in time. But instead, I take a bite and allow my tongue to dance with the sweet and spice of this unforgettable country of Mexico.