Meat at Your Market

We've been having a lot of fun exploring the many markets around Santiago. The city is very large, and the markets are just as unique as the differing neighborhoods that we've found them in. From flea markets to produce, meat, and fish, the Chileans do things big. The agricultural backbone of this country is so closely knit with the metropolitan aspects of society, that these aircraft hanger sized markets(or bigger) are interspersed throughout the city. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about this is the relationship the people who sell you the food have with their product. Each vendor has put either... sweat into growing or catching the food, sweat and money into bringing it to me, or both! Either way, these people have a connection with the food that is really impressive.

At a local meat market, Cait and I were excited to get some beef to put in a stew. After asking the butcher what he recommended, he finished his snack, and with the same hand reached into the display case to point out some meats he liked for us. All throughout the shop, there were butchers working with raw mean, without gloves. In the deli, the cuts of cheese and meat were handled in the same way. In most
stores here, you interact with a salesperson who gives you a slip of paper that indicates what you've ordered. You then take that slip of paper to a nearby booth where you pay the cashier. Now with both your order slip and a receipt, you make your way back to the salesperson who get's you what you came for. There is also no option for leaving a store without a receipt so by the end of the day...well you're pockets are stuffed.

The fingerprints of our butcher...appropriately printed in blood!