Change of Menu

Produce markets here are commonplace. I remember in Boston when I was a little girl that Fanueil Hall and Quincy Market still sold some produce and meats. After it was gentrified, though, the only market was the Haymarket on Fridays and Saturdays. Now I believe there's another new, indoor, market, but from what little I've read or seen about it, it's much too upscale and rich for the general public looking for daily or weekly fresh produce at a price that won't break the bank. 

Here, there's the weekly market with local, national, and imported produce (along with everything else under the sun sometimes). And there are the indoor markets where every morning except Sundays and Mondays for fish, you can buy fresh food. Almost every town has one, bigger or smaller. But they've run into tough times. There are lots of closed stalls, especially in cities like Santiago. While you can buy generally good food at the market, it can be slightly more expensive than at the supermarket. So, some market associations, such as the one in Santiago have decided to rent or sell some of the stalls to vendors directed more at tourists rather than the locals. Now, you can visit the plaza de abastos of Santiago and see beautifully decorated stalls offering comestible souvenirs, such as locally canned seafood and vegetables, liqueurs and wines, breads and pastries, or even upscale tiny restaurants. Those are cheek and jowl with stalls that have fare people have bought there for the past fifty years or more, such as all kinds of fish and shellfish, fresh off the local boat and from foreign parts. Meats of different cuts and different animals, chicken, veal, beef, pork, lamb, and sometimes turkey and goat. Salted pork for the cocido, eggs from free-range chickens that roam in the owner's yard. All kinds of cold cuts and cured meats, such as chourizos and ham. Fruits and vegetables in season and out. Rounding out with flowers, plants and seeds. Right next to the market there also used to be stores where you could buy almost anything for the kitchen, such as pots and pans, plates, platters, pails, wooden stools, sieves, etc. Those stores, too, have mostly closed. At one storefront, someone opened a gourmet restaurant/bar. Definitely not for the locals. 

As the neighbors leave the markets and head for the supermarkets, the local growers also become less. And older. There's a section in most markets where, on the day of the open-air market, local women bring their wares. You'll find all sorts of in-season fruits and vegetables these women have been tending to bring to market at their peak. Since the money they make is not enough to support a household, the women who sell their produce are all older. The younger ones are working at jobs outside the house. And, as they grow too old to care for their gardens, their numbers will dwindle. 

I go infrequently enough to the one in Santiago to notice the change to tourist attraction. Stalls where I once found seeds in late winter for kitchen gardens have become tiny restaurants. Others where they used to sell an abundance of fish have closed. Fruit and vegetable stalls now sell "authentic" liqueurs which have been made four hundred kilometers from here. A makeover of one of the areas has a locale that opens in the summer to show tourists Galician cuisine. Still another locale ships whatever a tourist buys. It's not the same as when I arrived over twenty years ago and it was considered normal and necessary to bargain over the price of a kilo of apples. Now the price is fixed and there are less stalls at which to buy essentials. 

As usual, the neighbors are being pushed out in favor of the tourists. While a tourist may spend well, it's a one-time earning and generally seasonal. The markets should try to attract the locals back, because the people who live in an area year-round are faithful customers who know where to buy what they need at a good price and where they are treated well. And they aren't looking to buy a t-shirt that says "With love from Santiago."