South America Drive

Love our Farmer’s Market in downtown Montevideo, Uruguay

November 24

“OMG – at our little farmer’s market we saw a couple featured on House Hunter International. What are the odds? We had walked past their place, but we never really expected to run into them. 

Our farmer’s market is small.  Need 100 ways to cook each item. Yuk…a ton of broccoli… probably next week they will have Brussels sprouts. 

They even sell the “not so perfect” fruits or vegies at a discount. Nothing goes to waste. Bought a couple cloth bags to make it easier to carry everything back to our apartment. 

Have to keep an eye on the guy totaling up our purchases. He tends to add a little. Pointed it out, he smiled and apologized. Note to self: next time bring a calculator.”

Market day - one of the shopping bags I brought from home. It has seen lots of use!

Market day – one of the shopping bags I brought from home. It has seen lots of use!

Street food was our most common “eating out” since it was inexpensive. Of course, the least expensive is “eating in,” especially when you add some wine. Luckily, I LOVE to cook and Chris loves my preparations. Cooking becomes part of the adventure: how to use what the locals use. Our apartment turned out to be only two blocks from a twice weekly farmer’s market. The street was closed to traffic; the farmers were set up from 9 am until noon.

Walking dogs towards the farmers' market.

Walking dogs towards the farmers’ market.

There are markets like this throughout the city. Our market was small and the only produce available was “in season”. The variety was not like going to Cub Foods. I even ate broccoli (not my favorite) more often than I would have liked since it was one of the few green vegies available year round. Their displays often had a crate on the ground in front of a fruit or vegie. It contained the broken, bruised or somewhat spoiled version of the above produce. These were sold at a steep discount. You could buy a crate of very bruised looking peaches and make a delicious and inexpensive peach pie. If you ask, they will choose your fruit based on when you want to eat it. After we became regulars, we did not have a problem with being over-charged.

Two blocks down was a farmer’s market. You would never know it was there unless someone told you.

 

Please leave a comment