Market tales from Goa

Spice seller at the market in Vasco de Gama, Goa, India

I came to India for some work meetings and wasn't going to come all this way and not stay and experience a bit of the country for at least a few days. And what better way to experience it all than through food, of course! I found a cooking course in Goa (on the west coast in what is the top of what is considered South India). And in case you weren't aware, South India means cooking with coconut!

Vasco de Gama at the pin!

But before cooking began, it was time for a trip to some of the local markets in Vasco de Gama. There are five main markets: vegetables and staples; fish; chicken and eggs; beef; and pork. With the varying beliefs of the Hindus, Christians, and Muslims -- the largest religious groups in the area -- the meat markets needed to be split up to keep everyone happy and able to shop for their necessities.

It's pretty dry at this time of year and fresh herb prices are at a premium.

The first stop was the rudimentary "farmers' market" for veggies. Almost everything sold here is grown in Goa or neighbouring states. There's the occasional imported piece of fruit but it's more the exception than the rule, so people buy what's in season. The prices are fair and the produce fresh daily from the farmers.

The local garlic is tiny and sold both by the head and the clove. Lots of tumeric and ginger.

Almost all of it is pretty recognizable but with a local twist. The garlic here, for example, is extremely tiny. Tomatoes and onions are also much smaller than we are used to seeing in North America. The cucumbers are a very light shade of green and the gherkins for pickles are tiny and look more like little marrows than cucumbers. The pumpkins are slightly different (and the one we used, at least, was very sweet) and there is a very wide selection of gourds ranging from big and round to long and skinny.

Bags of dried spices, whole and ground, dotted the aisles along with a variety of rices including a brown rice found almost exclusively in South India.

Bergi chiles on the top and the fiery little kankons in the bottom basket.

Of course, for me, the icing on the cake is always discovering new chiles and Goa did not disappoint. A fiery little devil called kankon is used in both its fresh green form as well as dried. The other is a larger and longer one called bergi, a medium spicy chile that gives an orange tint to food when used in its dried format. Kankons are just coming into season and there aren't a lot of them around yet.

These are mostly dried bergis and Kashmiri chiles

I was also told that right now in the couple of hot months before the monsoon, the ladies are out buying dried chiles by the bucket load in order to grind and make their various masalas. During the monsoons, fresh chiles are hard to find so the dried and ground versions are used a lot more.

Veg purchased and never tried before but got cooked, eaten, tried, and likely won't be eaten again: bitter gourd (it's name is no exaggeration).

Bitter gourd takes centre stage.

Only visited the fish market, which is quite small but boasts catch made by local fishermen that day. Apparently the best time to get the optimal fish is early evening but we were there in the morning so had to settle for what was around. It did not smell delightful and took quite a bit of mind of matter to get me in there.

Some good sized prawns at the fish market.

The sellers were mainly women with a variety of prawns, crabs, squid, and mostly really small fish (including baby sharks!). Kingfish is the most popular fish in these parts. We left with prawns, crabs, and a kingfish. Got out just before a tidal wave of fishy water was about the wash over my feet. I don't think I would have survived.

Lots of little fish, that in my opinion shouldn't be legal to catch, but I don't make the laws.

We did get to walk down the street with a fish in a bag, mostly tail to the wind as the bag was a bit too tiny. Luckily there was a bucket in the trunk of the car to contain it on the way back to cooking school. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the absurd fish tail.

Ingredients purchased, it was back for some cooking action. More on that later.

Altars

Altars are an integral part of the celebrations of Dia de los Meurtos. Most families and businesses create one to honour the lives of those who have passed away. In the days leading up to Nov. 1, I saw them popping up all over Oaxaca. Some were very elaborate and expensive while others much smaller and more modest. But all have the same basic premise and building blocks.

Sugar skulls, bread, and flowers are integral to all Dia de los muertos altars.

Generally an altar will be two or three tiers and each layer will be covered with a cloth and ofretas or offerings. Many will have an arch made of marigolds and sugar cane over the top.

Almost all altars will contain the following elements:

• Marigolds, which symbolize death.
• Pictures of the dead (in many cases including beloved pets (or mascotas)).
• Candles.
• Incense, usually from the copal tree.
• Sugar skulls.
• Pan de muerto, the egg bread symbolizing the deceased.
• Food, drink, and fresh fruit that were the favourites of the deceased. These can include traditional as well as modern foods as well as alcholic beverages, particularly mezcal in Oaxaca.
• Papel picado, the hand cut paper decorations.
• Salt, which represents the continuance of life.
• Pictures of saints.
• There are often other favourite things included such as cigarettes, and other items belonging to the deceased.

At our school, we built a modest altar but all went together to the market to buy the items. Anyone could add in items for people they wanted to remember. Weaving the flowers and putting all the pieces together and remembering lost loved ones, even though mostly with a group of people who didn't really know each other well, was actually quite uplifting. 

Bottom left from our house and bottom right was the altar from our school.

These pictures show some of the altars I saw around Oaxaca, including the one from our school, the house I was staying in, as well as a few other family and business ones.

The corridor of smoke

Not enough has been said in this little blog about the food in Oaxaca — at least not in my opinion as this trip is largely about the food!

I don't know if it has an official name, but at the Mercado 20 de Noviembre is a corridor that serves grilled meats. I call it the corridor of smoke because as you enter, you're assaulted by the smoke of dozens of charcoal grills being fanned by ladies cooking up meats, many kinds of meats.

I had read about it a bit in advance but otherwise the place makes absolutely no sense. You walk in and both sides of the corridor are lined with meat sellers. As you go by they loudly try to convince you of the superiority of their products and prices. But to me, they all seem the same, selling thinly sliced beef and pork as well as fat little chorizos and tripe; there's occasionally some other option. You order by weight, so if you know how much you want, you can tell them, or you can just give them a measurement with the space between your hands, ie: I want "this much."

But, first you actually need to go to another vendor to get yourself fresh chiles de agua (hot and grown only in the state of Oaxaca) as well as the delicious small white onions. Once you get those in a little basket, head over to a meat vendor, order up your meat, and then give them to the lady at the grill.

She'll chuck your chiles and onions right into the coals under the grill. Then the meat dude gives her the meat to cook. In the meantime, go find yourself a seat back with the vendor from whom you got the chiles and onions. From them you can order drinks, including beer, which is a delight in the smoky furnace of the place. They will also bring you a wide selection of side dishes including salsas, guacamole, pickles, fresh vegetables, and other stuff. You pay 15 pesos for each of these side dishes. So it does actually pay to go with a bunch of people 

At some point, your meat along with a few fresh and very large tortillas will be delivered to you and then you pay directly for that (I believe the ladies who cook and sell the tortillas are also independent vendors but as noted, it's a bit confusing). 

Well finally after all that, it's just up to the eating. I went with just one other person and we had way to much for just the two of us. I will say the chorizo was absolutely the best. Totally out of this world. The beef, carne asada, was tasty but a bit chewy. I didn't try the pork but my companion suggested it was tastier than the beef. 

I've seen now this meat selling, grill as you stand there thing in a few markets but the one in 20 de noviembre is by far the biggest and most elaborate.

This is me enjoying it all! Thanks to my pal Alice for sending me this (and insisting I post it!)

Beyond the corridor of smoke, this market, which has just been renovated (like last week) has dozens of places to eat traditional Oaxacan food. On another day, a school friend and I went and basically picked the counter that had the most Mexicans having lunch there. Unlike many of the other places, there was not someone yelling out to you to and sticking a menu in your face. We sat down and this place and asked for a menu and the dude was like, 'we have five things, pick one.' So I picked the chicken in salsa verde, which was also ridiculously good. And he topped me up with rice and sauce. Who doesn't like a place that gives you seconds. That and a drink cost 40 pesos. That's about $3.50!

They are all a bit skeletal here in Oaxaca

Today's post is a collection of the skeletons, and los catrines that I've seen around the city of Oaxaca over the past week. Most of them are women, or la catrina, the origin of which the hivemind at Wikepedia describe thusly:

La Calavera Catrina ('Dapper Skeleton', 'Elegant Skull') is a 1910–1913 zinc etching by famous Mexican printmaker, cartoon illustrator and lithographer José Guadalupe Posada. The image depicts a female skeleton dressed only in a hat befitting the upper class outfit of a European of her time. Her chapeau en attende is related to French and European styles of the early 20th century. She is offered as a satirical portrait of those Mexican natives who, Posada felt, were aspiring to adopt European aristocratic traditions in the pre-revolutionary era. She in particular has become an icon of the Mexican Día de los Muertos.

I'm starting off with this one that was in Le Merced market yesterday because I think this fruit seller had style with his catrine.

The rest are much more classic. The ones that look like they're in jail are all just in the windows of shops that are almost universally behind iron bars.

Chapulines finalmente

Spent much of the last few days having anxiety about verb conjugations, which has led to much wandering around town, yakking with people, and doing not much in the way of studying, which is what I should have been doing

But, as I'm sure everyone has been waiting with bated breath to find out, I have now tried the chapulines. That's grasshoppers to you who don't have a strong grasp on Spanish.

They eat a fair amount of insects here but the chapulines are the most prevalent. There is, of course, the worm (or gusano) in the bottom of the mezcal bottle but they eat them on tacos and such as well. I'm sure also before I quit this place, I will have tried some ant mole.

The chapulines are sold all over the streets and markets of Oaxaca. They come in three flavours: natural (lime and salt), garlic, and chile. They also come in a variety of sizes. Being a bit of a grasshopper virgin, I asked around and most people told me that they preferred the little ones. So at the market the other day, I got a handful of each flavour of the little ones and gave them a go. Ate them straight up. Not bad. Tastes like the flavours that are on them although they do have a very distinct smell (which is amplified when it is both hot and humid/rainy, which it has been the whole time I've been here). I liked the garlic the best but don't eat them if you're planning on having smooches any time in the near future.

I really tried to eat one of the bigger ones but as it sat on my plate the other day with it's grasshopper legs and crunchy aspect to it, I just couldn't do it. I still might but for now I'm going to ride the wave of having eaten grasshoppers at all.

The cooking show

First cooking class was today and I ended up being the only one in the class so it was essentially a private course and got to pick exactly what I wanted. Things started off brilliantly when I arrived and was offered coffee or chocolate. I had chocolate and it was brought to me steaming in a huge bowl with a side of sweet bread and hibuscus preserve. Dip that baby into the chocolate and you've arrived in heaven.

The class began with cleaning and preparing corn to make tortillas. We then stuck it in a bucket and headed out to a local "molino" — essentially a place where you bring stuff (corn, mole ingredients, chiles, chocolate, beans) and they grind it for you. In our case from the corn came masa, ground superfinely.

We continued with a trip to the neighbourhood market, Sanchez Pasquas, where I learned much about local herbs, fruits, and more. Most of that info has promptly been forgotton because I wasn't taking notes. I will say that there is lots of green stuff I can't buy at home. I am most sad about avocado leaves. This little market was pretty much only food and was a lot less busy, shall we say, than the big markets near the centre of town. We bought a bunch of ingredients for our class like cheese and squash blossoms, as well as these local plums that I had never seen and we used to make aqua fresca (basically sweet fruit water). Also discovered a new kind of basil here, that has a really sweet, lovely scent to it and which is not used at all for cooking but for "guarding" your business and also as a body cleanser.

Grinding the corn and making the tortillas. The ones on the bottom are the flavoured ones.

Back at Casa Crespo, we made three kinds of tortillas with our masa: plain, with plantain, and squash blossom and epazote (a widely used herb in Mexican cooking that is delicious cooked but smells like diesel fuel when raw).

Also three kinds of basic tomato salsa, well one salsa with two additions to make different flavours: cumin and avocado leaves. The latter was my favourite and I'm going to have to try to bring some dried ones home.

The first course was the plain tortillas with quesillo, the Oaxacan string cheese, and my salsas.

Tortillas con quesilla y salsa, ceviche, the local plums, and making rose petal ice cream. 

I had also opted to make ceviche, since I never have, so we made a version that was simply white fish (I didn't ask what kind) along with pickled chiles, olives, capers, onions, and tomatoes. Topped with a few slices of avocado it was totally spectacular.

Luckily that course was quite light because the squash blossom soup was rich, rich, rich.  We used an ear of corn, tons of squash blossoms, mushrooms, and a little squash with some onion, a fair amount of milk and a bit of cream but the thick double-cream type cream.  What I really noticed was when sauteeing everything in butter that it smelled very sweet. I took a small taste of the fresh butter and it was like nothing I've ever tasted before. Fresh, sweet, creamy but with a particular flavour that I suppose is due entirely to the cows and the terrain from which it comes. 

Squash blossoms (flores de calabaza) that became a rich soup.

The main course I chose was not one of the seven "official moles" of Oaxaca but one the chef called mole de fiesta, obviously served for holidays and festivals and the one he said he would be making in the restaurant next week for Day of the Dead. It had many ingredients: onions, tomatoes, pecans, almonds, raisins, guajillo and ancho chiles, plantain, oregano, chocolate, allspice, garlic, and cloves. Unlike many that I've made, this mole starts with frying most of the ingredients in oil (rather than dry roasting). It makes it very rich. I'm sure given more time to sit around the flavours would deepen dramatically but even after the short hour of cooking it had, it was really quite amazing. I had it served with poached chicken.

The ingreadients for mole de fiesta and the final product. 

Then last but not least on this eating fest, we made ice cream and since I'd never had it decided to go with rose petal ice cream rather than Oaxacan chocolate. It was also a taste sensation but probably one of those things that you'll either really like or dislike. Again, the bonus of being the only one in the class was I didn't have to worry about whether anyone else wanted to do it.

I, of course, got to eat this giant feast after I made it, sitting solo in the chocolate room in the restaurant. We didn't make anything too crazy: ant mole or worm tacos (they are on the menu there) but it was totally worth it and really pleased to have done it.

Everyone needs a certificate of conpletion. 

Learning Spanish is hard work

 First day at language school was exhausting. When your Spanish is as bad as mine and you have four straight hours of trying not to sound like a total idiot with no grasp of grammar, it can really wear a girl out. It's the constant battle I have of trying to learn new languages but never being as good at then as I am at English and then just getting super frustrated. I'm hoping this three weeks of intensive study will put a bit of a dent in that feeling.

Now that I've seen Oaxaca in the day, I'm much more comfortable and it's got some real gems in it. After class I decided to walk around a bit to get situated but was without the safety blanket of having a map — you know printed on paper like us old folks like. My usual internal compass got a little off kilter with all the rain and the people and the walking through a market but after a slight panic and resorting to Google Maps, I got myself to the zocalo (main square), gave that internal compass a bit of a shake and managed to self navigate back home thus restoring a fair bit of self confidence. But honestly Google is not really doing a particularly stellar job of directing me in Oaxaca so far. 

Finally today I got to delve into some Mexican food. Breakfast was prepared by Carmelita, one of our hosts. A diminutive woman who appears to be an absolute dynamo in the kitchen. A simple omelette with a spicy tomato ksauce was completely out of this world. I wasn't going to have any tortillas with breakfast as I felt I didn't need it and there is going to be no shortage but then one of my housemates didn't want a whole one so I shared it and . . . holy cow batman. I actually thought it was a flour tortilla but no it was corn but ground so fine and with such a different flavour from your run of the mill one. Just wow. 

Pollo en mole negro.

While here, I have the option of eating comida, the main meal of the day, at the house. I am going to do it for the first week while I figure out what's what around town. There's lots I want to eat so don't want to cut out those opportunities eating at 3 every day at home. But that being said, today's lunch was Oaxaca's signature dish: mole negro. The sauce can be made with 30 or more ingredients, including nuts and chocolate. I'm not sure what was in Carmelita's version but it was rich and velvety and served simply over chicken and with rice and tortillas. Another revelation. I'm going to have to get this woman to teach me a few things!

Of course that meant I was pretty full for most of the day but I did have my first Oaxacan hot chocolate and it was superb. I went with the cool kids for a study group at a local cafe and then we wandered about and I snacked on esquites: corn kernels in a cup topped with mayo, queso, chile powder and lime. Muy rico as they say here. A fun night all around.