Trip to the largest food market in the world

1 The commercial space of the Central de Abasto is divided into nine sectors: flowers and vegetables; fruits and legumes; poultry and meat; fish and shellfish; groceries and groceries; auction and producers; transfer warehouses; empty containers, and overnight area. In the photo, the nopales aisle of the vegetable section. SEILA MONTES

2Most of the enclosure is dedicated exclusively to wholesale and is bought by boxes, tons or whole crops. Many positions are specialized in the marketing of a single product. In the photo, a seller of young onions. SEILA MONTES

3 Unlike most of the world's supply centers, the Mexican allows access to individuals. There is a small area dedicated to the retail trade where making the purchase comes out 30% cheaper than anywhere else in the capital. SEILA MONTES

4With so much offer, how to make one position stand out above others? Easy, putting ingenious messages on the posters. A kilo of carrots for four pesos, why not? Add it, that the eight-peso ones are pure vitamin. SEILA MONTES

5 Ingenious posters aside, here too the most primitive tool in the history of marketing, the voice is used. "Pass it, pass it, pass it!", "I give you a price, güero", "How many, young man?", "What will you want, march?" The screaming of the vendors overlaps with the sounds of reggaeton, cumbia, ranchera and salsa of the transistors and with the whistles of the truck drivers asking for passage. SEILA MONTES

6 The clientele of the Central de Abasto is as varied as the genre sold. Owners of street stalls, bars, restaurants, owners of retail market stops, in charge of school and hospital canteens, buyers of supermarket and hypermarket chains, housewives and chefs run around the aisles in search of the best bargain. SEILA MONTES

7 “There goes the coup, there goes the coup!”, The truck drivers shout so that the people leave and give way to them in the halls. In the Central de Abasto work 14,000 carters. They are the real protagonists of the enclosure. Nothing new. They were already in the Aztec markets, where they were called tamemes and carried the merchandise on their backs because the cargo animals did not reach the Hispanic occupation. Now they are known as devils and their wheelbarrows, little devils, because their handles resemble the horns of the devil. In the photo, a group of truck drivers taking a break. SEILA MONTES

8 Mexico is the number one avocado producing country in the world. A third of the total is yours. Half of the national production is exported. The United States is your main customer; Nine out of ten avocados consumed there are of Mexican origin. In the photo, a seller of avocados from Michoacán, the first state producing the fruit of the country. SEILA MONTES

With the expression "being more Mexican than the cactus" there is nothing more to add. The prickly pear is on the national shield and its pencas are used in traditional medicine, as well as in tacos, tlacoyos, toasts, soups, salads, stews and juices. In the photo, a nopales cleaner grown in the state of Mexico. On a productive day, you can remove the thorns of five thousand stems. Without gloves and only with a knife. SEILA MONTES

10 Mexico produces fifty different types of peppers and they are all in the Central de Abasto; Fresh, dried, ground or pickled. According to the National Institute of Anthropology and History, 90% of the dishes of its cuisine include chilli pepper. The one in the photo is of the Havana variety, the hottest in the country and the fifth hottest in the world according to the Scoville scale, the protocol created in 1912 by the American chemist Wilbur Scoville that measures the degree of itching of Peppers. SEILA MONTES

11 Guava (with a slightly acidic taste, white or pink flesh, with seeds and a musky aroma) and tejocote (bittersweet flavor similar to a small apple with bone) are winter fruits in Mexico. Both are used in the decoration of altars and offerings of Day of the Dead and in the elaboration of Christmas punches. SEILA MONTES

12The mole; a sauce made mainly with chili peppers, spices, nuts and many other ingredients such as vegetables and various fruits, thickened with corn or tortilla dough and accompanying meats or fish, it is to Mexican cuisine that Frida Kahlo is her art; an icon. According to spicy sauces expert Dave DeWitt, there are more types of Mexican moles than types of French cheeses; about 300. SEILA MONTES

13 Salted cod boxes in a Mexican market? At Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, Lent and Holy Week dinners it is traditional to eat Biscay cod in the Mexican version. The choriceros peppers of the Spanish recipe are replaced by güeros chiles in vinegar and potatoes, olives and capers are added. In the capital, ground chili is added to give more color to the dish. SEILA MONTES

14Oaxaca is one of the gastronomic bastions of Mexico. Mezcal, quesillo, tamales, tlayudas (hard corn tortillas stuffed with meat, cheese, vegetables and beans), chapulines (grasshoppers), moles and, of course, chocolate. Some historians believe that in the 16th century a group of nuns from a Oaxacan convent decided to add sugar and cinnamon to the cocoa drink to reduce the bitterness and ... the rest is history to the delight of the entire planet. Hence, one of the nicknames of the state is the cradle of chocolate. Interestingly, most of Oaxaca's famous chocolate is made with cocoa from Tabasco and Chiapas. SEILA MONTES

15 The Central de Abasto is a large city within a megacity. There is everything: bank branches, couriers, medical centers, mechanical workshops and, of course, coffee shops, restaurants, restaurants and taquerías. The tacos of the Taqueria San Judas Tadeo are for many chilangos of the best in the capital. SEILA MONTES

16Through the market aisles there are also street food vendors. In the photo, one of basket tacos. Simple, tasty and greasy, they are filled with beans, potatoes or pork rinds, accompanied by avocado sauce and served in brown paper. It is the cheapest street taco; It costs about five pesos (€ 0.20). Outside the Central de Abasto, these taqueros move by bicycle and store the tacos in a basket lined with blue plastic and covered with rags. One does not look for a basket cue. The taco finds one. SEILA MONTES

17 Next to the vegetable area is the nave of flowers. Three hundred stores sell almost three hundred different kinds of flowers and plants. SEILA MONTES

18There are altars and images of the Virgin of Guadalupe everywhere, just like outside the premises of the Central de Abasto. SEILA MONTES

19 In a corner of the Central de Abasto is Ciudad Huacal, a popular name for the empty packaging market: an immense labyrinth of corridors formed by millions of boxes perfectly placed in piles over eighteen meters high. The huacalitos are the wooden boxes used to move the goods. In this area of ​​eleven hectares, the wooden, cardboard and plastic boxes used by the sellers and buyers of the premises are repaired, stored and resold. SEILA MONTES

20CEDA's cultural project that attracts the most attention is that of the Central de Muros. In 2017, and on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Central de Abasto, twenty Mexican and foreign urban artists were invited to paint the exterior walls of 32 buildings. Today, it is the largest outdoor art gallery in Latin America with a total of 64 murals. SEILA MONTES