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First Time Reader? ......here is the background to this series of blogs:
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lobo/9/1233502800/tpod.html

Mexico: 23 Destinations to Spend the Winter Months

San Cristobal de Las Casas  
no. 19 of 23 destinations (this is not a ranking)

Mercado Municipal and a Hill of Beans
Part 5 of 5
 
For sheer visual delight the Mercado Municipal – "Jose Castillo Tielemans" was a lasting memory of our visit to San Cristobal de las Casas.

After our remarkable visit to Casa Na-Bolom, located at Vincente Geurrero #33, we headed west towards downtown. It was during this walk that we stumbled upon the municipal market and its labyrinth of stores and stalls offering a myriad of merchandise.

My earliest memory of a market that impressed me to this day was in Athens in 1972 . That was the first time I witnessed how exciting the markets of southern Europe could be.

That same excitement I found again in Mexico where the “Mercado municipal” was the shopping Mecca of every city that we visited.

Almost anything associated with the personal needs of food, clothing and household goods could be found under one roof in vast quantities. Barbara's standard mantra when we walked through a market was: “How can all these shoe merchants (zapaterias) survive? Since I only own three pairs of shoes, that was a question that I could relate to.

As I look at my photos I must confess that I seem to have been fascinated by two things in the market – the brilliant colors and the people. If I had known that the brilliant colors would inspire me to write a blog about the market I would have made the photos a bit more representative of what was being sold there.

That’s why I have to ask: Where are the photos of the meat, poultry, fish, clothing vendors? Well it turns out to have all been a “hill of beans” .

No, on second thought, it was the beans that made me write this blog. I know that Mexico is big on beans and we loved eating the “frijoles” or Mexican refried beans whenever we could. But the market took the beans and their colours to a whole new level.

There were pinto beans, black beans, black turtle beans, black-eyed beans, navy beans, small red beans, great northern beans, light red kidney beans, dark red kidney beans, pink beans, Mexican chickpeas, Lima beans, mung beans, pinto beans, soybeans and of course there were coffee beans, but that is another story.

Come to think of it, I have a love affair with beans. I love eating beans. Being somewhat stilted in my enthusiasm for red meat, I have this idea that beans are a good source of protein in a quasi-vegetarian diet. I say that I am somewhat stilted in my enthusiasm about red meat because while I like the idea of “vegetarian” I have never seen a vegetarian who looks any better than someone who eats meat and I have seen a lot who look worse .

It is also incredibly easy to prepare a meal by combining in a casserole a ready-to-eat Knorr soup (Hearty Italian Vegetable, Autumn Vegetable, Red Pepper and Tomato), a can of lentils, a can of bean medley (red kidney beans, chick peas, Romano beans and black-eyed peas) and maybe a little cooked rice. Just heat and that’s all that’s to it – if you are not demanding.

As I write this blog in the Victoria (British Columbia) Public Library my mouth is starting to water and when I go home I know exactly what I will have for supper tonight. Barbara is still working in Prince George, BC until Friday (Sept. 4, 2009) so the simplicity of my meal is no problem at all.

So keeping that in mind it is now 17:42 and time to head off to Thrifty’s in James Bay and buy some beans.

It won’t be quite the same as in the Mercado Municipal – “Jose Castillo Tielemans”. There won’t be a fabulous selection of many different types of beans sporting their beautiful colors . Instead the meager bean selection at Thrifty’s will be in cans or in wrap. So I would have to conclude that in comparing the selection in Mexico with the local selection that the latter “doesn’t amount to a hill of beans”.

And yes, after my bean supper I will take my ususal hour’s walk along the Strait of Juan de Fuca, past Odgen Point (the cruise ship harbor), to Fisherman’s Wharf and along the boardwalk that leads to the Inner Harbor. That gives me plenty of time to process the beans in the beautiful outdoors!

Feedback: travelswithlobo@yahoo.com

Coming Soon: Campeche - The Cadiz of Mexico