Sep

What’s in the World’s Largest Food Museum?

by Eva Boynton on September 21, 2016

A woman selling chocolate at Central de Abasto, the world's largest wholesale market where Mexico's cultural heritage is also on display. (image © Sam Anaya A.)

Oaxacan chocolate rivals Swiss and Belgian chocolate in flavor, in uses (mole, hot chocolate,
sweet and savory dishes), and in cultural heritage.
© Sam Anaya A.

Chocolate, Pineapples, and Cultural Heritage—All at Mexico’s Central de Abasto

“Zoooooom!” A cart stacked with mangos tumbles by me, almost taking my right foot along for the ride. Fortunately, Isabel Ramillo, who sells chocolate from Oaxaca, grabs my shoulder to pull me out of the way.

As I regain my composure, my nose catches a whiff of meats, flowers, and spices for Mexican mole sauce. My ears ring with the sounds of “¡Buen precio!”, whistles, and hundreds of shuffling feet.

I’m in Mexico City at the Central de Abasto (“Supply Center”), the world’s largest wholesale market. But, considering the people, produce, and regions of Mexico represented here, to my eye it is more like a bustling food museum.

Pineapples stacked with their juice in front at Central de Abasto, the world's largest wholesale market where Mexico's cultural heritage is also on display. (image © Eva Boynton)

At this “museum,” the exhibits are interactive—buy and sell, sell and buy.
© Eva Boynton

Within the mountains of tomatoes, baskets of chile de árbol (tree chile), bags of nopal (a type of cactus), and shelves of pineapple, there are also links to Mexico’s cultural heritage. You may be surprised at what you find.

Metropolis Within a Metropolis

The Central de Abasto has everything typical of a big city: banks, kitchen supplies, laundry, convenience stores, electronics and restaurants—not to mention Mexico’s greatest show of produce, fish, flowers, seafood, milks, and meats.

Foods attract the eye in museum-like exhibits, carefully arranged for beauty and stability.

Carrots stacked in a criss-cross pattern at the Central de Abasto, the world's largest wholesale market where Mexico's cultural heritage is also on display. (image © Eva Boynton)

A carrot weaving?
© Eva Boynton

The market is a hive of activity with somewhere between 300,000–450,000 daily visitors, more than see Rome or Madrid in a day! Consider its impact:

30 thousand tons of food are sold here on a daily basis.
The market provides 80% of the food consumption for over 20 million Mexicans.
About 10,000 loaders, known as diableros, operate carts that carry goods to the vendors’ stands. They are among the market’s 70,000 employees.
Warehouses in the market complex cover 328 hectares (810 acres).
Fifteen halls, totaling 11 kilometers in length, hold 100 warehouse sections each—all filled to the brim.

In fact, the market is so big that freeway-like signs direct customers to the halls, each of which specializes in one type of food or goods. In just the produce area, about 2,000 vendors sell fruits and vegetables.

Inside a hall packed with people at Central de Abasto, the world's largest wholesale market where Mexico's cultural heritage is also on display. (image © Sam Anaya A.)

In the middle of the hustle and bustle!
© Sam Anaya A.

Cultural Roots

The concept of a large central market in the area that became Mexico City goes back six hundred years to the Aztec market known as Tlanechicoloya. Throughout Mexico’s cultural history, foods and goods have continued to change hands in central markets.

In the 20th century, when Mexico City expanded around the downtown La Merced market to the point that traffic congestion impeded market operations, the government decided to open a new central supply center.

In 1982, it inaugurated the Central de Abasto in Iztapalapa, an outlying district in the eastern part of Mexico City. Over time, the Central de Abasto became its own metropolis. Today, it is not only the most important food supply and distribution site for Mexico City but also for the entire country.

Two vendors holding a papaya in front a stack of papayas wrapped in newspapers at the Central de Abasto, the world's largest wholesale market where Mexico's cultural heritage is also on display. (image © Sam Anaya A.)

Papayas travel from Oaxaca to the Central de Abasto to be sold by Enrique and Eric Mandujano. They are wrapped in newspaper to keep their color and avoid oxidation.
© Sam Anaya A.

The produce from the country travels first through the Central de Abasto and on to homes, taco stands, neighborhood mini-markets in Mexico City and even to outlets in Mexico’s different states.

A Taste of Cultural Heritage

Mexico is a country of diverse cultures and regions, all represented at the Central de Abasto by vendors offering products unique to their regions.

If the market is a food “museum” offering a collection of cultural heritage, then the foods are the cultural artifacts in the collection. These are foods that have fed indigenous and Mexican populations across centuries. They offer you nourishment and something more—a taste of cultural heritage. Tastes like these:

1. The Pitahaya

Known as dragon fruit, pitahaya or pitaya (pee-TAH-yah) comes in an exotic pink with a delicious surprise center. As a member of the cactus family, it grows in the northern desert regions of Mexico.

Every July, a pitahaya festival is celebrated in Miraflores, Baja California. A gathering contest kicks it off and is followed by traditional dance, music, and food dishes, many of which showcase pitahaya as an ingredient. The festival began thousands of years ago with the Pericúes, Guaycuras and Cochimíes, indigenous peoples who celebrated the juicy fruit in cactus “forests.”

A girl holding a pitahaya fruit cut in half at the Central de Abasto, the world's largest wholesale market where Mexico's cultural heritage is also on display. (image © Sam Anaya A.)

Pitahaya comes with a sweet chia seed-like gelatin center.
Add some yogurt for a tasty combination!
© Sam Anaya A.

2. Magnificent Mole Sauce

Coming from the Nahuatl word molli that means “sauce” or “mixture,” mole (MO-lay) is used as a base for soup, poured over different kinds of meats, or used as a sauce for enchiladas. It can include a complex arrangement of 20 ingredients, including chiles, nuts, seeds, vegetables, and sometimes cacao.

Bags filled with different spices at Central de Abasto, the world's largest wholesale market where Mexico's cultural heritage is also on display. (image© Eva Boynton)

A rainbow of mole and other spice powders
© Eva Boynton

The flavors and styles of mole vary with the region in Mexico where it is prepared: moles come sweet, spicy, red, yellow, brown, and in a variety of names. Mole poblano, named the “national dish of Mexico,” is associated with either the state of Puebla or Oaxaca. The origin of the famous dish is a mystery told in several legends.

3. Huitlacoche

Huitlacoche (wheat-lah-CO-chay) is a fungus that grows on corn kernels, a delicacy inherited from the Aztec who added it to soups, crepes, quesadillas and tamales. Though its name translates from Nahuatl as “raven’s excrement,” it makes a tasty dish when you slap it together with onion, garlic, and salt.

Huitlacoche fungus at the market, an artifact of cultural heritage at Central de Abasto (image © Eva Boynton).

Huitlacoche is also known as corn smut or Mexican truffle.
©Eva Boynton

In Chiapas, people connect huitlacoche to family, history, and life in Mexico. When families searched for the fungus in corn fields, they spent quality time together. While they walked through the fields, elders passed down stories and families built a relationship to their land and crops.

Oh, I See

The experience of the Central de Abasto is like that of a grand museum. You leave happily exhausted from looking hard at the details of the past and present.

What I took away from the market was not only some tasty cultural artifacts but also a new understanding of Mexico’s culinary cultural heritage. The Central de Abasto transforms from a food market to an epicenter of national inheritance: the gifts of the land incorporated into cultural practices.

Mexico City is the city with the most museums in the world — 128 in all. It is a city that proudly preserves its cultural heritage. Let’s put one more museum on the list—the Central de Abasto!

A table with produce bought at the Central de Abasto, the world's largest wholesale market where Mexico's cultural heritage is also on display. (image © Sam Anaya A.)

A display of cultural souvenirs
© Sam Anaya A.

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Eva Boynton 6 Comments

Cultural Heritage & Traditions/Mexico

Sep

So Far, So Fab, Sofia!

by Joyce McGreevy on September 6, 2016

Alexander Nevsky Memorial Church is one of the most popular sights in Sofia, Bulgaria. Image © Joyce McGreevy

Russian-inspired and relatively new (1924), Alexander Nevsky Memorial
Church has become the most recognized landmark in Sofia.
© Joyce McGreevy

Wanderlust Leads to Sofia

If you visit Sofia, Bulgaria, prepare for the inevitable response.

“Bulgaria? Bul-GAR-ia? Where IS Bulgaria, exactly?”

The only European country never to change its name, Bulgaria is in the Southeastern European peninsula known as the Balkans.

Balkan means “a chain of wooded mountains,” and Bulgaria epitomizes this. One-third forested and teeming in biodiversity, Bulgaria borders the Black Sea to the east, Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south.

“Why Bulgaria?” This could take a while, given the rich culture, thoughtful people, affordable prices, fabulous food, excellent public transportation, and natural wonders.

Seven Rila Lakes in Rila Mountain, south of Sofia, inspire wanderlust to visit Bulgaria. Image by Filip Stoyanov

South of Sofia, Rila’s glacial lakes mirror the sky 6,000-8,000 feet above sea level.
“Seven Rila Lakes in Rila Mountain” by Filip Stoyanov is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Collage of Cultures

Start with mind-blowing history. Bulgaria is a collage of ancient cultures: Greek, Roman, Slav, Bulgar and, above all, Thracian. Orpheus the musician was Thracian. So was Spartacus the warrior.

In 342 A.D., when Sofia was called Serdica, Alexander the Great’s father loved it so much that he declared, “Serdica is my Rome.” By the 1200s, the Bulgarian Empire was the dominant power in Balkan Europe.

Then came conquest by the Ottoman Empire, re-emergence as an independent state, and the post-WWII years under Soviet Communism.

Ancient ruins amid a modern cityscape are one more reason people with wanderlust visit Sofia, Bulgaria. Image © Joyce McGreevy

A single view encompasses ancient Roman ruins, Byzantine churches,
Ottoman mosques, and signs of post-Communist commerce.
© Joyce McGreevy

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and so did the Eastern Bloc. Westerners may be surprised to learn that the transition to parliamentary democracy was far from celebratory. Shortages, crime, and uncertainty hurt living standards until the mid-2000s.

Bulgaria’s admission to the European Union in 2007 and ongoing reforms have been welcomed. If the performance of some post-Soviet governments have proved unsatisfactory, today’s Bulgarians are free to protest.

One urbanite installed on his balcony a giant sculpture of a hand pointing a certain finger toward the National Assembly. That’s a universe away from when the mildest political joke could lead to arrest, or worse.

Party House, the former Communist Headquarters in Sofia, Bulgaria are now scenic details for tourists with wanderlust. Image © Joyce McGreevy

The imposing former Communist HQ, now an archive, brought new meaning to “Party House.”
After 1989, the giant red star was removed by helicopter and replaced with the Bulgarian flag.
© Joyce McGreevy

Likewise, the post-1989 diaspora, which saw 1 million Bulgarians emigrate, has slowed. Bulgarians who travel abroad (565,000 in 2015) now have more reasons than ever to return.

College is free, the tech industry is thriving, and creative small businesses are on the rise. According to Eurostat, unemployment in Bulgaria is steadily decreasing, from 9.8 to 7.4 percent in the last year.

Ancient and Eternally New

Remember this if wanderlust inspires you to visit Sofia, Bulgaria: Cities are works in progress. Initial views from the airport taxi are dismaying—peeling stucco, exclamatory graffiti, the skeletons of Communist-built apartment blocks.

But here, too, are signs of restoration, renewal, and reinvention.

Vibrant murals and leafy green public gardens. Dazzling Orthodox church interiors, honey-colored mosques, and Art Nouveau synagogues. Street music and courtyard cafés. Grape arbors and roses encasing wrought-iron balconies. Markets where tomatoes actually taste like tomatoes.

Murals created by locals will delight you if wanderlust leads you to visit Sofia, Bulgaria. Image © Joyce McGreevy

From metal gates to utility boxes, any surface can be a canvas for Sofia’s muralists.
© Joyce McGreevy

It’s like hearing the melody line within a layered jazz composition. Once you perceive Sofia’s beauty, it surges to the forefront.

Sofia disproves the notion that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

It sets crumbling sidewalks at your feet and raises golden domes over your head. It begins interactions with solemn expressions, then breaks into smiles. It sends dishes out of kitchens slowly, the better to create unforgettable feasts. It surrounds you in a maze of streets, then makes it a pleasure to wander.

Ulitsa Karnigradska is one of the charming streets that inspires wanderlust to visit Sofia, Bulgaria. Image © Joyce McGreevy

Sofia boasts the longest boulevard in Europe–but don’t miss the charming side streets.
© Joyce McGreevy

In Bulgaria, even brusqueness isn’t always what it seems. On a rural day-trip I asked about buses back to Sofia. Suddenly, station personnel barked commands and practically carried me onboard. Sheesh.

Turns out the last bus of the day was about to depart and they were making sure I didn’t get stranded. It became one more reason to say Mnogo blagodarya, “Thank you so much!”

Perhaps the best way to be in Bulgaria is to find your “aylak.” That’s a Turkish word Bulgarians use as slang for going with the flow.

At Zoya on Aksakov Street, people with wanderlust to visit Sofia, Bulgaria find organic, vegan, and gluten-free fare. Image © Joyce McGreevy

Zoya Organic led Sofia’s trend toward grocery-cafés that offer vegan and gluten-free menus.
© Joyce McGreevy

Beyond “Fascinating Facts”

Travel blogs about Bulgaria are replete with “fascinating facts”: Bulgarians nod for no and shake heads for yes. Sofia has an actual yellow brick road. “OMG, Bulgarians play the bagpipes!”

Go beyond factoids and learn from locals. Sofia’s walking tours are among the world’s best and cover everything from arts and culture, traditional and contemporary dining, nature hikes, and even a candid history of Communism. (The latter stops at a leading North American coffee chain.)

Fun and sociable, the tours are also in-depth. Most are free. Tipping is good manners, but you won’t be pressured.

The benefits go beyond photo ops. Consider the perspective of Martin Zashev, whose nonprofit association has welcomed visitors to Bulgaria from more than 125 countries: “We believe in a world to know, to understand, and to improve. When people know each other—their cultural and historical backgrounds—they understand each other. And when you understand each other, you don’t fight.”

Martin Zashev, a guide for Free Sofia Tour shares a wealth of knowledge with all who visit Sofia, Bulgaria. Image © Joyce McGreevy

Personable guides like Martin Zashev of Free Sofia Tour and Hristina Bareva of Balkan Bites (below)
offer insights that you won’t find in any guidebook.
both images © Joyce McGreevy

Sofia Moments

Many who visit Sofia consider it a stopover to Black Sea beach resorts. That’s a pity. Stay a while, and along with architectural treasures, you’ll experience moments that become great memories.

Summer evenings when the air smells of rose oil and grilled red peppers. Filling a bottle with cold, refreshing water from an ornate fountain. Seeing the full moon illuminate Mount Vitosha.

My Sofia moment happened at a café near my Airbnb apartment. When I bused my own table the counterman looked surprised. Had I committed a gaffe?

“You’re becoming Bulgarian,” he said. Then smiled.

I’ll take that over a beach selfie any day. Oh, I see: When you visit Sofia, Bulgaria, wanderlust leads to lingering.

Flowers on a balcony delight those whose wanderlust inspires them to visit Sofia, Bulgaria. Image © Joyce McGreevy

May Sofia flourish!
© Joyce McGreevy

Explore Free Sofia Tour and Balkan Bites.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy 15 Comments

Art of Travel/Crossing Cultures

Aug

WWOOF’s Homegrown Education

by Eva Boynton on August 22, 2016

Two women on a tractor at a WWOOF farm where they learn new skills and may develop into a global citizen. (image © Lizzy Eichorn).

Full steam ahead! The traveling farmer plows the ground for a worldwide education.
© Lizzy Eichorn

From Traveling Farmer to Global Citizen

“Evvvvvvvaaaaaaa, tea time!” my New Zealand WWOOF host would sing to me each day at noon. It was time to return from the garden for a full plate of fresh garden yummies. And so our days on this organic farm progressed to dinner followed by guitar and accordion melodies from a French couple, WWOOF volunteers themselves.

WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) is a global work exchange program. Volunteers work on the farms, and WWOOF hosts offer food, lodging, and an organic education. You get to meet up with people from around the world and, together, you might do anything from A to Z:

—milk cows and make cheese in Argentina

—plant vegetables at a therapeutic center in Kazakhstan

—harvest oranges in Nepal

—become a beekeeper in Tanzania

A woman feeding geese during a WWOOF experience, where she also gains insight into life as a global citizen (image © Courtesy of WWOOF Australia).

As a WWOOFer, you literally break ground, get your hands dirty and cultivate a homegrown education. You arrive at each new destination with a helping hand and an inquisitive mind. You may start out as a traveling farmer, but through the WWOOF experience, you gather crops and the skills of a global citizen.

Connected to the Land

The seeds of WWOOF were planted in England in 1971 when Sue Coppard, a secretary with an office job, wanted to get outside, experience the countryside, and support the organic movement.

A house in the countryside with mountains, showing the WWOOF education of a global citizen (image © courtesy of WWOOF.net

The organization was created by people who, perhaps without agricultural background, wanted the opportunity to learn to live with and from their environment—a collaboration with mother nature.

Today, WWOOF operates around the globe from Africa to the Americas, from Europe to Asia. Volunteers, as traveling farmers, find a new respect for the dirt underneath their feet and discover how living things, including even the ladybug that lights on your arm, are interconnected.

WWOOF volunteer Kristen Waddel explains:

We dug holes. But we didn’t just dig holes. We gained knowledge of different soil types (mostly clay and sand). We had close-up encounters with local insects and became aware of how greatly entwined into the whole ecosystem they are.

Ladybugs on a plant at a WWOOF farm lead to insights that develop a global citizen. (image © Lizzy Eichorn)

Field-to-Fork Connections

Farm life also means eating from the farm. From garden to table, WWOOFers experience the direct connection between their handiwork and its homegrown, delicious rewards.

A basket full of fruit and vegetables from a WWOOF farm provides an education for a global citizen (image © Lizzy Eichorn)

Forget the grocery store and check out what’s in the garden—a rainbow of YUM
from Country Flat Farm in Big Sur, California.
© Lizzy Eichorn

The WWOOF experience is an interdisciplinary education that combines soil, plant, and animal science with culinary arts. It contributes to global citizenship by helping the volunteers understand the full process of putting food on the table in different parts of the world.

A bee hive with beekeepers harvesting, showing the WWOOF education of a global citizen (image © Lizzy Eichorn).

Jars of honey, showing the WWOOF education of a global citizen (image © Lizzy Eichorn).

While learning these processes, WWOOFers also pick up new recipes (organic and unconventional): Elderflower Champagne, Spicy Pepper Jam, Vegetarian Chickpea Burgers, and Honey Pizza. They learn and enjoy the “field to fork” cycle.

Practical Insights and Epiphanies

Slam! My friends always look at me perplexed after I jam my fist on top of a clove of garlic.

A WWOOF volunteer crushing apples learns skills that have more to do with being a global citizen that you might think. (image© Courtesy of WWOOF Australia).

It was not an angry attack on the bulb but a technique I learned after peeling loads of garlic on a WWOOF farm in New Zealand: crush the garlic and the clove skin slides right off.

On a farm, daily activities vary—repair a fence, turn the compost, plant and harvest crops, cook breakfast, herd goats by motorcycle, crush apples.

Out of these everyday activities come some practical “Oh, I see” moments:

Since honey takes on the flavors of the surrounding flora and fauna, it can taste different in different places in the world.
A pile of mulch compost can produce a heat over 100 degrees, just right for a hot shower.
A wheelbarrow is the perfect place to take a nap.

A woman sleeping in a wheelbarrow on a WWOOF farm where the work develops global citizens. (image © Courtesy of WWOOF Australia)

Other “Oh, I see” moments are true epiphanies—WWOOFer Ciaran Paul explains how he learned the value of uncertainty from his experiences in Turkey:

Due to the complexity and intricacies of farm life, tasks were almost never predetermined, and I reveled in the uncertainty of what the next day might bring.

Learning just how flexible you can be is another. Part of being a WWOOF volunteer is living with a family. Each farm is different and offers a window into family dynamics. When I took ninja lessons from some 6-year-olds, I found out what it means to adjust and adapt to a different lifestyle, literally and figuratively.

Kids and WWOOFer hanging upside down on a pole, showing the education in family dynamics for a global citizen (image © Eva Boynton).

Embracing uncertainty, developing an open mind, bending flexibly—all these attributes help people live more effectively and happily in the world. They underpin success as a global citizen.

Navigating Across Cultures

WWOOF education is dynamic and eclectic, but there is more. Because WWOOF farms take volunteers from different countries, the work experience also offers a natural cultural exchange.

A group of WWOOF volunteers working together in Portugal, sharing their cultures as they also develop as global citizens. (image © Courtesy of WWOOF.net)

And WWOOFers, who travel to farms on several different continents, encounter even more cultures, lifestyles, and religions. When they leave a farm, they carry with them new-found knowledge about organic farming and a tool box of global skills derived from the cross-cultural collaboration.

Many have found the motivation to learn in the backyard of their own minds, to respect the people and approaches of different cultures, and that’s what changes a traveling farmer into a global citizen.

Thank you, Lizzy Eichorn, for photographs from your family’s WWOOF farm, Country Flat Farm, in Big Sur, California. Thank you, WWOOF.net and WWOOF Australia, for photographs of WWOOFing in action.

To find more stories and information about WWOOF, check out The Green Compass.