Browsing the Markets of Oaxaca

In my two weeks in Oaxaca last December I spent not enough time wandering through the city’s markets.

Part of my time was getting acquainted with the busy and colorful places and part was focused on buying holiday gifts to take home; next time—and there will be a next time—I’ve promised myself a slower experience. As I look through my pictures, I see more and more things I wish I’d looked closer or longer at.

Starting in one of the larger markets, the Benito Juarez market, I realized that to a degree these are not just places to buy and sell; here and there they are also places where products are being made, including these baskets.

There’s an eclectic mix of clothing, crafts, kitchenware, spices and ingredients, as well as fresh produce, poultry and meat.

There are also plenty of places for a meal, and even an area featuring several vendors of glow-in-the-dark shirts. There are tourists shopping here, but despite those shirts, it’s not a tourist market.

The same could be said for the next market a couple of blocks away, the 20th of November Market, named for Revolution Day, the start of the 1910 uprising that ended the 30-year rule of Porfirio Diaz as president and dictator.

You had me at bread…

This market also has many small eating places and many of the same type of stalls as at Benito Juarez.

A few blocks away, there’s another huge market, the Mercado de Artesanias. The Artisans’ Market certainly draws more tourists, but it’s not aimed primarily at visitors. It’s an outlet not only for local artisans and small producers but for others from the surrounding region who come to sell.

Many of my family holiday gifts came from here, at reasonable prices, generally lower than in shops around the city. In quite a few stalls there were sewing machines, some busily at work.

La Cosecha is a much smaller market with a relaxed vibe, and a bit further from the center of Oaxaca. Its stalls are ranged around an open area with seating; it’s sort of like a food court combined with groceries and produce.

It’s where I was introduced to Cafe de Olla—ground coffee, boiled in a pot, usually clay with cinnamon and ‘piloncillo,’ a raw dark sugar. It is much more than the sum of its ingredients!

At the market, it was served in a low earthenware cup with an enigmatic face; the maker of the cups has a stand there as well, and several came home with me!

The biggest market in Oaxaca, and its main wholesale food distribution center, is the Centro de Abastos—I didn’t get there, but I’ve promised myself that I will sometime. It is so vast that advertised tours of it last three-and-a-half hours!