Mercado Municipal de Viseu in 1992
What fascinates so many travellers about markets? I know that here, in Toronto, the St. Lawrence Market is also a favourite tourist destination. Markets allow us to enter the world of the “locals” and see people at their most relaxed; usually on a Saturday morning, as they browse through farm-fresh fruit and vegetable stalls or pick out flowers for a weekend dinner party, excited to interact with the people who actually grow the produce they bring to the city to sell.
I have experienced the St. Lawrence Market as a “local,” not as a tourist. As a “local,” I am absorbed in my purchases; as a tourist I am focused on observing my surroundings. The tourist is still the outsider, taking photographs of oranges and lettuces as if they were some exotic things.
So, when I have visited markets in Portugal, I am the outsider taking the photographs of oranges and lettuces. I enjoyed walking through the mercados in Viseu, Porto, Vila Real de Santo António, as well as Ponta Delgada in the Azores.
But it’s not so much the produce of the mercados that entices me to linger just a bit longer than necessary for someone who is just looking; it’s hearing the cacophony of people’s voices speaking in a language I love.
Viseu, 1992
Viseu, 1992
Porto, 1984
Vila Real de Santo António, 2009
Vila Real de Santo António, 2009
Vila Real de Santo António, 2009
Mercado da Graça, Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, Azores, 2000
Outside mercado da Graça, Ponta Delgada, 2000
Mercado da Graça, Ponta Delgada, 2001
Mercado da Graça, Ponta Delgada, 2001
Mercado da Graça, Ponta Delgada, 2008
Mercado da Graça, Ponta Delgada, 2008
The middle box contains grosselhas, tart yet delicious. Mercado da Graça, Ponta Delgada, 2008
Old mercado de Viseu, 1992
Emanuel Melo torontonian azorean writer 
I remember being astonished during my first visit to the Azores by all those pineapples in the Ponta Delgada mercado!
As for the home-front, John missed weekly produce shopping at our local farmers’ market all last summer, because we both chose to be super-cautious about coming near others before there was a Covid vaccine. This year will be different for us, though, as we’re both fully vaxxed.
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Hi Kathie, I hope John gets to your local farmer’s market this summer and maybe, just maybe, he might find you a delicious pineapple!
What I love about the Azorean pineapple is how sweet it is. Wish we could meet up again in Ponta Delgada and share one.
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Ooooh, now you’re just giving me saudades, Emanuel! (No locally grown pineapples in the Pittsburgh area, for obvious reasons).
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I seem to recall pineapple preserves there. And I think John sampled some local pineapple liqueur.
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O nosso mercado é especial!
Adorei todas as fotografias, mas em particular as de Ponta Delgada. Belos registos!
Abraço
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