Our wonderful guide Ruixi had been previously advised that Marketman was big on markets, so she made sure that a market was on our itinerary that day. After the fried pancake and hearty bowl of lamb meatball soup, we needed a short break from the eating. The market in the Muslim quarter was bustling, and we only managed to see a small fraction of it, but it was totally worth the trip. As soon as we got out of our tuktuk, we were greeted with this abundance of freshly picked strawberries. Wow!
Dried lotus seeds…
…goji berries…
…black raisins still with their stems…
…green or golden raisins (a personal favorite, so I bought a kilo’s worth) sourced straight from the farms…
…oddly shaped nectarines…
…mulberries, or I think they are mulberries…
…dressing a chicken (why do they say that, when Undressing the chicken is probably more descriptive) or is it a pigeon?…
…lotus roots…
…various green chilies…
…fresh water chestnuts…
…the most incredibly intense red dried chilies I have seen in a while…
…and crushed or ground as you pleased…
…sichuan peppercorns and star anise…
…seeds of all kinds, melon, squash, etc.
I can’t remember what these were, but if I had to guess, seaweed of some sort.
Tons and tons of apples. One forgets when you are conditioned as a child that all red apples are from Washington state, that they probably grow more apples in China than anywhere else on the planet. In fact, China grows nearly half of all the apples commercially sold on the planet, or a whopping 8x the apples grown in the U.S.!
And finally, walnuts and dates. If we weren’t headed to another city and we weren’t so limited by minimal luggage allowance, I would have filled a box with things we saw that day. More market finds in the next few posts…
7 Responses
The selection and the photos look great. I’d say Marketman was a happy camper!
Wow! So fresh even the dried ones
Photo 7 made me google:
https://www.differencebetween.net/object/comparisons-of-food-items/difference-between-blackberry-and-mulberry/
I suddenly have a hankering for buto ng pakwan.
These pix make me suspect the ugly irregular goods are sorted out and exported to the West. We never get goji berries as vividly red as those or lotus seeds as white. When raisins first came out of China, mother use to wash them first to take out the grit that made whatever she baked extra-crunchy.
Dressing means preparation of food or food related stuff. Probably a hold-over from Norman French, dresser, v. to prepare. Also encountered in salad dressing and dressing a dining table. Pic shows someone plucking feather, dressing poultry usually includes removal of entrails, cutting off of head and feet and trussing. At home, I was in charge of passing the plucked poultry over open fire to singe off the really fine feather since I did not have the pluck to lend a hand in the actual slaughter.
Thanks for sharing this. I’m amazed at how clean the market looks.
We had several mulberry trees in our backyard in Baguio and it bore fruit to the same berries in your photo :)
Hi, where can i find candle nuts, tofu puffs around metro manila?and also chendol?