A Trip to The Market
June 16, 2012 in Asia, Thailand, Travelogue
People are forever asking what we eat when we travel.
The answer to that varies widely, depending on where we are in the world. Generally, we try to eat local and small scale, meaning we shun big box stores in favor of buying from individuals in the market. I love market shopping and I love meeting the purveyors of our dinners face to face and exchanging a smile and our thanks along with a few baht.
The market happens in our town on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, meaning I only have to buy a little bit at a time, but our “biggest” shopping day is Saturday (today!)
Above is a picture of me returning from the market today:
As you can see, my traveling backpack serves as market bag too! When it gets full I strap stuff to the outside. I think the locals think I’m a little loco, but they’re getting used to me!
Below is a picture of what we bought today:
Including:
- 1 watermelon
- 2 pineapples
- 4 guavas
- 4 red fruit we don’t know the name of but that taste a bit like appley-cucumber
- 3 mangos
- 1 what we hope very much is our Guatemalan frog fruit
- 2 yellow peppers
- 2 red peppers
- 3 onions
- 3 HUGE carrots
- 6 potatoes
- 4 tomatoes
- 2 cucumbers
- 2 heads of garlic
- 1 bunch of lemon grass, galangal & kefir lime leaves
- 1 bunch of meter long green beans
- 3 HUGE ears of corn (pre-cooked)
- 1 kilo of limes
- 2 kilos of small oranges (kinda like tangerines only not quite)
- 3 bunches of lettuce
- 1 bunch of cilantro
- 1 bunch of green onions
- 6 plates of funky friend noodle stuff with sauce that we love (tonight’s dinner)
- 12 pieces of friend chicken (tomorrow’s dinner after the beach!)
- 1o chicken thighs
- 1 fish-kabob (a la Gabriel)
- 3 long stems of orchids
- 2 boxes of coconut milk (not pictured)
- 1 litre of Coke (not pictured)
- 2 boxes of milk (not pictured)
- 5 gallons of water (not pictured)
Total bill: $55 USD for three days worth of food for our family of six, including two teenagers. Make it an even $60 if you add the oatmeal and eggs they’ll eat for breakfast that we already have in the house.
Twenty bucks a day, and that’s with two meals of “convenience foods” (meaning pre-cooked at the market and carried home.) $3.33 per person per day.
Needless to say, this is rather below our US and Canadian budget!
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Oh, this makes me miss market shopping so much! Can’t wait to get back to it.
Is the appley-cucumber thing a rose apple, in Thai something like chaumpu?http://thaifruits-aroy-aroy.blogspot.com/2007/01/rose-apple-chomphu.html
Have you found rambutan yet? Eat one for me!
I would love to see you with your big ol’ backpack filled with food! Market people would give me such funny looks when I’d bring my own bags to refill when I was in India. One thing I’m hoping for our our travels is to try to bring a bunch of reusable bags for market shopping.
Can’t wait to come visit!
Gorgeous bounty! One thing I didn’t do too much of when was I out and about by myself. I looked alot, but never bought much.
I’m sure this time around with kids will be a much different focus!
One thing I’ve thought about recently now there are kids in the picture–healthy AND organic? When you are shopping at foreign markets do you know if they use chemicals/pesticides?
I’d never thought of it before, but now it’s all changed.
What’s that odd looking black thing on the plate?
Heather… the odd looking thing on the plate is Gabe’s beloved Fish-kabob.
No, I don’t know whether things are organically or chemically grown. Sometimes you’ll find a place that advertises organic stuff. More often, it’s not advertised one way or another and you just have to make the best choices you can that day, given what’s available.
THANK YOU REBECA! A rose apple. Good to know. We have had the rambutan, but didn’t love it… the slimy texture… maybe we ate it wrong? Advice? I have a fruit and veg bag that I’ve carried everywhere, blue mesh. I keep mending it. I use my backpack… and we reuse all of the plastic bags they give us as trash bags, etc. Trying hard to reduce plastic use which is an unheard of concept in most of the third world.
My mom’s favorite fruit growing up in Costa Rica was the rose apple or “agua manzana”. We tried them and nobody really cared for them, but interesting to “see” them on the other side of the planet!
And I look about the same when I go to the market, but usually have a helper or two that I share the load with!
I usually have Gabe as a porter, at least… that day Tony and I had just gone quick on the bike.
OH MY GOD you got the BBQed cat fish!!! SO GOOD!!!
No advice on the rambutan. I first ate them in Liberia, where they were called monkey fruit, and loved them, but other places I’ve tried them they’ve not been as tasty. So maybe hold off until you hit West Africa? :>
When I was in India, we had had to throw our trash out on the street in a heap, and I guess there was a truck that came once in a while. It sure made me think about what I was throwing away! The produce was bagged in these horrible thick plastic bags, and the market vendors wanted to package every single thing for me. Drove me crazy!