Buenos Aires Market

 (2015-03-22) A new presentation of the Buenos Aires Market fair took place. It is a traveling food market dedicated to organic and healthy foods. Both Saturday, March 21st and Sunday, March 22nd at the Palermo Hippodrome, whose entrance is located at the intersection of Libertador and Dorrego streets. On the 21st, I went to visit it there along with my sister and my brother-in-law. Free admission. We arrived around 11 am and quite a few people were starting to arrive; an hour later there were already a lot of people. By 1 pm it was already packed with people. A sign, seemingly pointed out by the metallic statue of a jockey, indicated that we were in the right place. I had never been to the hippodrome, and it's not like you could just visit it either; the event barely occupied a part of the front, the stalls were located next to each other, like any fair, in this case forming a U-shape. One of those three sides was the sector that concentrated the food to be eaten right there on the spot. Due to the number of people who arrived, at one point it seemed that the place had become too small, there was a certain discomfort in moving around, people crowded tightly together at the stalls to be able to see the products, those who could, and it became somewhat uncomfortable to circulate. This happened close to noon when the largest crowd arrived. Between 10 and 11 am when we arrived, you could walk well since it was emptier.

A fair of healthy, natural, and organic foods. Was it really like that? The vast majority would believe so, but some gatecrashers could be seen that didn't look healthy at all. According to their website, there were more than 70 stalls counted. A good number of products were offered for tasting. Brochures with advertisements for the offered products were handed out. The cultural imprint in the language was noticeable, starting from the title itself "market" and going through raw food, fast food, crackers, food trucks, crumble, veggie friendly, a touch spicy, veggie high end, and a lot more vocabulary that apparently makes it more interesting or I don't know, on their website they promote the fair as "in the best style of London and New York", many of the offered products were described in a bilingual way, in Spanish and English.

As a novelty here, I was able to see some "food trucks", trucks or vans where certain fast foods are prepared, something I used to see in foreign movies but that doesn't exist here, and I think due to an issue of licensing or regulation, which a short time ago the topic was being raised as a possibility to implement them as it happens in other capitals of the world. Many stalls allowed you to try a tiny sample of their products such as flavored oils, others like an organic yerba mate gave away a small sample packet, but not to everyone, they decided who they gave it to or not, which is why I didn't buy from them despite being a mate drinker. 

Another product was a sea salt, which they sold in jars mixed with spices, and they had a significant variety; of these, I took several. A product that caught my attention and we asked about to see what it was, a blueberry chutney, and it turned out to be a bittersweet product. And so many more products like the now recognized food famous for its nutritional properties such as quinoa or quinua seeds (a word of Quechua origin). Several products that I didn't know, like black garlic, which is cultivated and fermented here but its origin is foreign. Thus, many other products where each person looked for the one that suited them. The website of the event is http://www.buenosairesmarket.com/