TRIP TO THE WET MARKET

This chronicles my first visit to the wet market, which happened to be in Little India (the floors are routinely sprayed and washed with water—to the extent of flooding it at frequent intervals—hence the name "wet market"). People go to the wet market to find the freshest vegetables, seafood, poultry, meat, fruit, herbs, dried fish and various other food products, some of which I had no previous knowledge. Most of the meat/fish/seafood can be cleaned/gutted or butchered on the premises. This trip is not for the faint of heart or for those extremely visually or olfactorily sensitive, as in some areas the smell of fresh, raw chicken for example or mutton (barf) is so penetrating I had to hold my breath. The upsides? Food is about as fresh as you can find it, without living on a farm and slaughtering the animal with one's own hands or pulling the vegetables from the earth. Prices can be up to 5x cheaper than supermarkets. There is a certain romantic ideal related to procuring one's food as close to the source as possible. The downsides? Tramping through slippery, wet, smelly stalls, smushed up against the throng of humanity. Getting propositioned to buy from every vocal seller as you pass by. Lugging a week's worth of unrefrigerated food home in 15 plastic bags....



1. Mackerel?
2. Trays and trays of different sizes and varieties of prawns.
3. Pretty fish.




1. Me with my bag of fresh, grated coconut and the coconut seller.
2. The Lamb Guy.




1. My most artistic picture of live, blue? crabs.
2. A red basket of crabs scurrying to escape.




1. Dried fish, beans and nuts.
2. DRIED CHILI PEPPERS!
3. Dried anchovies.






4. The green squiggly things are called "cendol" and get their color and taste from the pandan leaf; these sweet noodles are used in an Indonesian dessert with palm sugar, coconut milk and ice. It is OK but not my favorite.
5. I think this is a bean stall with tofu, bean curd, fresh bean sprouts and the like.
6. EGGS. I tried the "salted eggs" at a buffet breakfast in Indonesia. YUCKY. Tastes like a hard boiled egg that has been soaking in salt water for a week.

ALTHOUGH I CONSIDER MYSELF TO BE
AN ADVENTUROUS EATER,
THESE THINGS WILL NEVER CROSS
MY PALATE, EVER.

1. CHICKEN FEET:
(definition from Wikipedia: "chicken feet...are eaten in Chinese
and South African cuisine. The majority of the edible meat on
the feet consist of skin and tendons, without much muscle.
This gives the feet a distinct texture different from the rest
of chicken's meat [oh really]... Some folk medicine traditions
claim that chicken feet can prevent or treat wrinkles,
due to their high collagen content.")


2. MUTTON:
(I had my share of mutton chops in 1980, living in Loah, Utah.
Paul Felton is my alibi on this one.)


3. COW CHEEKS:
I read that "cattle cheeks are a very muscular piece of meat
that when properly cooked melt into a pool of meaty morsels.
For those meat-minded people, few cuts of meat offer
as much flavor packed bang for your buck."

4. BLACK CHICKEN:
An Asian delicacy, as many believe that soup made from black chicken
has medicinal properties that are especially helpful to women.