It has the most beautiful greengrocers. On every corner lacking a cafe, there’s a little fruit and vegetable shop with all the goods - so many - laid out in pretty rows in wooden crates. Walls of different kinds of lettuce, frisee, chicory, rocket and some other bitter leaf I’ve never seen before. Red peppers, yellow and green stacked to the ceiling. Avocados, aubergines, pumpkins and zapallitos (a knobbly green thing which turns out to be a type of squash). Red onions, Spanish onions, spring onions, shallots. Apples, pears, grapes, tangerines, kiwi fruit, strawberries. More vegetables and fruit displayed more attractively than I’ve ever seen. I chatted to the owner of one place who told me that near the airport is the wholesale market where all this produce comes from. It’s like an entire city, he told me – twenty thousand people work there. I made a mental note to visit if I ever came back.
What is clear is that most of these shops are run by Bolivians or Peruvians rather than Argentines. And this is where they live. Behind the walls of wooden crates is a tiny space with a telly (always) and floor space for the whole family at night. On one sunny afternoon I saw the greengrocer, in a gap between serving customers, laying meat on a grill over coals on the quiet street in front of his shop – a kitchen in his ‘home’ would only take up precious space where the produce goes.
What really mystified me about these shops, though, is where does all this produce go? If you order a salad with your slab of bleeding meat, in Argentina, it has 3 ingredients – floppy lettuce, tasteless tomatoes and thinly sliced onion. Who buys all the rest and what do they do with it?
What is clear is that most of these shops are run by Bolivians or Peruvians rather than Argentines. And this is where they live. Behind the walls of wooden crates is a tiny space with a telly (always) and floor space for the whole family at night. On one sunny afternoon I saw the greengrocer, in a gap between serving customers, laying meat on a grill over coals on the quiet street in front of his shop – a kitchen in his ‘home’ would only take up precious space where the produce goes.
What really mystified me about these shops, though, is where does all this produce go? If you order a salad with your slab of bleeding meat, in Argentina, it has 3 ingredients – floppy lettuce, tasteless tomatoes and thinly sliced onion. Who buys all the rest and what do they do with it?
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