Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais: Mercado Central

Food markets are one of my favourite activities when I travel. Food is something that brings people together in many ways - it brings traditions from the past to the present, it brings people together to cook and share, and it exposes different nutritional habits.

We spent two days this week walking in the mercado central of Belo Horizonte. I was grinning the entire time. The best part of going to Belo Horizonte's mercado is that this town is really not a tourist town, so I think I was the only non-brazilian there. This is beneficial for my experience because I am able to really see how people go about their food shopping and selling without worrying about a 'show' being put on for tourists.

Here are some of the highlights:

Candied fruits. My favourite were the candied whole figs.

Here we bought mandioca flour which we often eat at lunch in a fried rice and vegetable jambalaya. Mandioca is also known as yuca or cassava in other parts of the world and has typically been a food of poor people.

Here you can see the mandioca root which this seller efficiently removed the skin with his machete so it was prepared for us to cook. We enjoyed the mandioca fried in oil which makes it take on a french fry like consistency.

What is this you ask? Pig tails. Pig tails, feet and ears are popular ingredients as they are used to make feijoada which is one of Brazil's most popular dishes, though I have not yet been able to try it.
Tabacco rolls for all my smoking friends.

The actual biggest hat I have ever found. I have a similar one at home but maybe 3/4 the size of this one. It was fabulous!

Then we got to the live animal section which was a clamorous site of activity. Cages upon cages were filled with thousands of birds of every type you could imagine, dogs, cates, rabbits and other rodents. Birds were the most popular and they are one of my favourite. Though the conditions were questionable, all the birds did look quite healthy. The parrots were cheap but some of the more rare birds quite expensive. For example in Canada last I checked you could buy a cockatiel or lovebird for $180. Here you could buy a cockatiel for $45 or a lovebird for $30. For the more exotic birds - namely the Canada goose - the price was 5000 R or $2900 for the pair.

Being in the market I obviously assumed that some of the birds were for pets, but that some of them were for consumption like the ducks, the chickens and some of the geese. When I told this to Gigi she was horrified that I would think such a thing and so maybe they are all just for pets. I wish I would have asked. Apparently I continue to only see cooked meet when I look at certain animals.

A variety of bulk spices. Attractive displays are definitely most eye catching and effective and bringing in customers.

Bottle of Cachaca (said ka-sha-ssa). This is a typical sugar cane alcohol of 40% proof. I was given some to try pure at home, which went down very easy but then slammed you with its alcohol a moment later. Really took my breath away. In a lemon-sugar cocktail, it was much more apetizing.

Here are pequi fruit. It is native to Brazil and very popular in Minas Gerais. Its seeds can also be used to produce an oil.

The last two stalls were for hot peppers, pimientos, for cooking and preserving, as well as a collection of dulce de leites.