Open Air Market and SuperMaxi

This is the mercado near our apartment. There are open stalls in the interior of the building selling meats and produce and "sit at the counter" type restaurants. Two sides of the building have individual stores on the outside, like you can see below, that sell dry goods like rice and macaroni out of bulk bins and packaged foods.

Every Saturday morning we go early to the Open Air Market before we go to the missionary meetings in the two zones. It is held in the open space to the left of this building and several side streets to the left and behind this building. I love it. Lots of buyers and sellers. Lots of choices. Lots of grandmas and mommas carrying babies selling produce. They also have some prepared foods, as well as freshly killed chickens, chicken and quail eggs, cheeses and dried fish. Some of the fruits come in grocery store boxes and were grown in Chile but most of it is local and produced on a very small scale. Things grow all year here in Ecuador and everyone can sell anything they want to. Last Saturday we bought some baking soda from a man who was selling a sandwich bag's worth for a dollar. That is a big bargain here because baking soda is regulated (they say it is used in drug manufacture) and you usually can only buy a couple of tablespoons at a time in a pharmacy.

 

They use corn here but it bears no resemblance to the sweet corn we know and love. The ears of corn have kernels that are big and knarly and never get very tender even with long cooking. People sit and pull the kernels from the corn cobs. The peas are big and tough too. But they do all the work and you can buy things ready to go into the soup. Most of the big bowls above hold dry beans but the multicolored one is a combination of peas and carrots and corn and small pieces of broccoli - all ready to cook.

 

Shopping on Saturday mornings is a fun adventure. The only problem is that all that produce is heavy. We have two large plastic containers. One is shaped like the one the man in the black plaid shirt has. The other is just plastic fabric that can take the weight. We are glad that we live just a couple of blocks away from here. The prices are wonderful. Most things are $1/ pound or much less. We don't want to carry home much more than $10 will buy. Ecuador is easy because they use the US dollar and while SuperMaxi prices by the kilo they use pounds here at the mercado.  We could get a taxi but we would feel silly paying $1 for a couple of blocks.A lot of people have shopping carts on wheels. But we are too frugal to buy one when we will be here for only a short time.

Just a block away from the mercado is SuperMaxi. It is one of the biggest chains of grocery stores in Ecuador. They also have MegaMaxis in bigger cities which expands the merchandise sold. MegaMaxi is a bit like WalMart and the SuperMaxis are very much like our grocery stores.They currently have almost no food from the USA but there are many brands we recognize that are produced here or in other South American countries. 

We probably go to SuperMaxi once every week or two to buy things that are not available at the Open Air Market. Lewis buys flour for his bread at the mercado. It is packaged in cloth like a pillowcase. But they do not have whole wheat flour. We have to get that at SuperMaxi. We really are being good in our "real food" choices here in Loja. We have not been eating any meat and really loading up on the vegetables, beans, whole grains and fruit. It is a good thing that we had to make treats for the missionaries for Christmas. Our sugar addiction was starving and we enjoyed the holiday, but now all the treats are gone and we are being good again.

Here are some colorful food photos I have taken in our kitchen:

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are trying to follow the Word of Wisdom with more diligence. Good food is beautiful and tastes delicious. (But we do miss the big chocolate bars that we used to buy all too frequently.)