Smelly Fruit and Sweat - I am in Paradise!

If you know me, you know I enjoy food, and by association – markets. I have visited markets in Nepal, India, Thailand, Vietnam, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, France, Hondurous, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Italy, Morocco, Kenya, Ghana, and of course Mexico. I love the colour, the aromas and the mayhem. I especially love to try things I have never eaten before. YOU CAN FIND SOME PRETTY COOL THINGS IN MARKETS.

Yesterday we bought our groceries at the market in the Zapata area of Puerta Vallarta. There, in one open air stall you can find every sort of fruit and vegetable imaginable. Some pretty funky looking ones too: take the custard apple – or sugar apple – officially known as the Annona squamosal. It looks like a cross between a brain and a pear…no, maybe a cauliflower and a pear…better yet, they look like a cross between an artichoke and an apple!

This amazing little fruit is not only deliciously sweet and, well, custardy; it is both poisonous and incredibly good for you (depending on which website you choose to visit). It’s texture (like custard of course) may not appeal to all people, but no one can resist the lure of spitting out it’s huge, soft, oblong seeds. It should be an official sport! I don’t recommend eating the seeds, but the oil from them is effective at killing head lice…just don’t get it in your eyes as it can blind you.


Another weird one is Durian – famous for its raw sewage smell. This fruit smells so bad that some hotels in Southeast Asia ban the fruit as its odour can linger for days. I cannot imagine WHY people decided to eat this particular fruit. Did someone really wander through the jungle one day and see this spiky ball laying on the ground, take a whiff and say, “WOW, this smells horrible! I wonder what this tastes like?" Well whoever was brave enough to get past the odour (I cannot) they were rewarded with a flesh that tastes like a rich almond custard.

Anyway, markets are an encyclopedia of food. I could go every day and not get bored. Stephane, on the other hand, thinks the whole market experience is like, well, work. Not the kind of work he used to get paid to do, the kind of work where he has to carry bags and bags of heavy fruits and vegetables in 32 degree Celsius heat with 100% humidity. Sweat running down his face, dripping off his nose while I am giddily running from stall to stall practicing my Spanish by asking for un pollo entero sin los patas (a whole chicken without the feet).

I have often read that people who retire to Mexico (or other tropical places) often lose weight and get healthy. The reasons are obvious. Yesterday it took us an hour to walk to the market, and another hour walking in search of a milk frother (not to be found), all the while sweating buckets. For breakfast we eat fresh papaya and desert is pineapple so sweet you'd think you were eating candy. For lunch we shared a gigantic aguacate (avocado) that was so ripe it was nutty and buttery...squeeze on a little lime....

Fresh sea air, lots of exercise, fresh fruits and vegetables, and of course lots of fish. Who wouldn't lose weight and become healthier?

Tomorrow we are off to the fish market in search of atun. I am thinking rare, seared on the BBQ, served with rice and a fresh papaya and roasted pepper salsa.

Come to think of it, fish smells icky yet I eat it and love the taste...maybe I will try Durian.