For my first month and a half in Guadalajara, cooking for myself was not much of a priority. I was consumed with getting Casa Valentina successfully launched, and with the FIFA World Cup underway, we were running at about 90 percent occupancy. There were guests constantly coming and going, apartments to clean, check-ins to prepare, and the inevitable issues that come with operating a new property. So I ate out. A lot.
I certainly didn’t mind. Guadalajara gives you plenty of reasons not to cook. Eventually, though, both my budget and my desire to get back into my own kitchen told me it was time.
As a chef, fresh ingredients matter to me. I especially wanted a reliable source for fresh, local produce—what I kept thinking of as a farmers market.
Without a car, I had been buying all of my groceries from Walmart because they offered delivery at a very low cost. That worked reasonably well, but sometimes something I ordered simply wasn’t available, and occasionally the quality wasn’t what I wanted. I had gone almost two weeks without tomatoes because the grape tomatoes I ordered hadn’t been delivered.
I searched online, including asking ChatGPT about farmers markets, but I wasn’t finding quite what I wanted within walking distance. Then I stopped looking and accidentally found it.
I was walking to DHL on an errand when my route took me along Calle Ignacio Zaragoza. Suddenly, for at least two blocks, the sidewalks were covered with fruits and vegetables.
And I mean covered.
Piles of produce extended from the shops onto the sidewalks. There was so much of it that I immediately knew I needed to return, but not that day. I was headed somewhere with a purpose and didn’t have time to stop. Perhaps more importantly, I didn’t have any pesos with me. Small markets like these aren’t places where I assume I’ll be able to use a debit card or pay with my iPhone, so I kept walking.
My first instinct was to figure out exactly what I had found. When I described it to ChatGPT, the initial diagnosis was a neighborhood tianguis, a type of open-air market common throughout Mexico. That seemed entirely plausible, especially since I had only passed through the area once and hadn’t had time to investigate further.
It took me a while to get back to Zaragoza. When I finally returned, I realized the tianguis explanation didn’t quite fit. What I had seen wasn’t a temporary market appearing for a particular day. These were established produce shops extending their displays onto the sidewalks as part of their regular business. Apparently, even ChatGPT needed me to go back and take another look.
Casa Valentina kept getting in the way of my return. Mornings are often when I’m cleaning apartments, preparing for check-ins, or dealing with whatever needs attention at the property. I wanted to visit Zaragoza in the morning, when I thought I’d have the best selection, but finding the right morning took longer than I expected.
This week, I finally did. My first trip back was early—too early, as it turned out. I recognized the corridor immediately, but it wasn’t yet the place I remembered from my walk to DHL. It was just waking up.
Trucks were making deliveries. Crates were stacked along the street. Vendors were beginning to arrange their produce. Nopales waited in boxes. Flowers were appearing on the sidewalk. The pavement was still wet.
I couldn’t stay until the market reached its busiest time, but arriving early gave me a chance to notice something I probably would have missed otherwise: how much work goes into creating what shoppers see later in the morning. When I returned during peak time, that work was everywhere.
The sidewalks were overflowing with produce, carefully arranged in enormous displays. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, fruit, beans, garlic, jamaica, cinnamon, and more seemed to fill every available space. What struck me most wasn’t simply the abundance. It was the precision.
Every morning, all of this has to be unloaded, sorted, stacked, and displayed. Then the next day, they do it again. There is an enormous amount of labor behind those beautiful piles of fruits and vegetables, and I appreciate that.
There were plenty of shoppers, too, which told me something else. I may have only recently discovered this place, but the people who live here clearly already know exactly where it is. The prices were another pleasant discovery.
I didn’t arrive looking for anything particularly exotic. I wanted the vegetables I actually eat. Tomatoes were high on the list after going without them for nearly two weeks. I love cucumbers and had run out of them. I needed bell peppers. I bought carrots as well. I looked for lettuce and didn’t find what I wanted, but that’s okay. I’ll find another source. I came home with exactly the kind of food I had been trying to find.
I don’t know whether Zaragoza should technically be called a farmers market. The people selling the produce aren’t necessarily the farmers who grew it. In the ways that matter to me, however, it serves much the same purpose. Fresh produce arrives regularly, and the shops extend their displays onto the sidewalk. The selection is tremendous, and people from the neighborhood come here to shop. I’ve decided I’ll probably return every three or four days.
Perhaps the more interesting part of finding Zaragoza is what the experience reinforced about discovering Guadalajara. Since moving here, I’ve learned that searching online will only get me so far. My Spanish will eventually become good enough that I can ask more people where they think I should shop, eat, or explore. Recommendations, however, are recommendations. Everyone has a different idea of what’s best. I’d rather discover some of those things for myself.
Even when I’m walking a route I already know, if I have the time, I often take a different way home. I turn down another street, walk through another neighborhood, and see what is there. Sometimes I don’t find anything particularly interesting.
And sometimes, on the way to DHL, I find my market.
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