Hi Everyone,
When I was younger I never liked going to the market. Supermarkets? Yes, but the market, uh uh. And yet, every week, my mother would send me to the market. I swear the woman was punishing me.
What was it about going to the market I didn’t like? Well, I had bag issues. After shopping, the bag was really heavy and I always walked home. Walking slowly, I would shift the bag from one hand to the next. Sometimes I wondered if I would ever reach home and, as I continued to walk, I would day-dream about later in the day when I would be curled up reading a book off in some imaginary far-away place where I would not have to go to the market!
I found market bags to be large and unattractive and I don’t know which was worse – having to walk with a bag to the market or dragging the heavy bag home. Both had their own degrees of distress for me. I didn’t like holding things in my hand and, after all, I was an attractive young lady and you never could tell when a young man might whistle at me. So I used to fold the bag as small as I could, trying to make it as tiny as a change purse, but it never worked.
Another reason I did not like going to the market had to do with the vendors. They probably figured because I was young, I did not know anything about shopping. So, they never let me choose any of the produce and would sometimes give me sub-standard things, even though I’d point to what I want. I’d reach home and get a lecture, again, about what to look for when shopping for vegetables or fish or shrimp: Tomatoes should be firm, never to be squeezed, only caressed gently to find any of the faulty soft spots. The skin of an eggplant should be smooth not wrinkled; pumpkin – thick and deep-orange in colour, not thin and pale. The “white-belly” shrimp should be glossy, shiny and pink, not swollen and white; the gills of fish should be pink-red, the flesh firm and the skin glistening with its natural elements, perhaps even breathing.
My mom always had “rules” when it came to market shopping. “Don’t stop and buy at the first stall”, she’d say meaning that, invariably, the first stall would have the item overpriced “to catch people just like you.” Mommy’s advice was to walk around, making a mental note of which vendor’s produce looked good and the price. She told me to only start buying as I made my way back to the front of the market.
In retrospect, I understand the wisdom of her advice.
Not buying at the first stall provided an opportunity to peruse what was on offer, ask a question, and get more information without committing yourself.
I learnt to shop and pack – I’d place the heavier items at the bottom of the bag and the more delicate things such as tomatoes, eschallots etc. at the top.
Since I’d start shopping from the back of the market, and the bag got increasingly heavier, I would also be approaching the entrance to make my exit home.
Here’s yet another reason I did not like going to the market, after shopping and walking home with the heavy bag, you had to clean the fish and shrimp you bought! Already tired, you had more work to do. So I’d help to “pick shrimps” (clean shrimp) and clean and cut-up a variety of fish. I learnt how to peel and shred katahar, seed and cut corilla, sprinkle with salt and squeeze it to extract the bitterness. I am grateful that I know how to do those things; they are skills I could only have learnt by doing and being in an environment where such chores existed.
Here in Barbados, I don’t go to the market often. I go to the supermarkets. The times I’ve gone to the market, however, (as recently as last weekend) I found that I could not employ one of my mother’s major rules of not stopping to buy at the first stall. Here’s why.
At weekly markets, such as the one here in Barbados, timing is important; demand is more than supply and relationships can mean everything.
Arriving at 6.30 am so that you can get all the things you need is a must, it’s amazing the difference that 15 minutes later can make. It could mean no tomatoes, no eschallots, no bora or having to settle for something that is not as fresh.
There will always be more demand than supply at weekly markets. The one I go to is serviced by a small number of farmers who try their best to cater to a city with a growing population. So, I throw out my mother’s advice about not shopping at the first stall – when I arrive and I see that the first stall has one of items on my list, I check it for quality and make my purchase right away, I do not have the luxury of walking around and then coming back to buy. Of course, it would be different if I had a relationship with the vendor, in other words, if we were friends or if I were a regular customer.
You see, once you make a connection with vendors, life can be good; as a regular customer, you’re special. Being special means you are guaranteed certain things. Vendors, now your friends, will turn away new customers and tell them that “all done” while there are two parcels of the requested items clearly in sight!
I miss not having a daily market. Even if we had a daily market I would probably still shop weekly, I have a hectic schedule. Nevertheless, a daily market offers you some things a weekly market can’t – you get abundance and variety and you don’t have to rush out of bed early on a Saturday morning after a hard week of work just to get to the market before everything has gone.
I don’t know if I like going to the market any more now than when I was younger. I know what I do like about a market – the freshness of the food, the education from conversing with the vendors, the sounds, and the sense of community. Supermarkets and mega markets are the rave these days, they beat markets on convenience every time but if most of us are honest, we would prefer that our food come from the butcher, the fisher folk, or the vegetable and ground provision vendor at the market.
Cynthia
tasteslikehome@gmail.com
www.tastesofguyana.blogspot.com