One of my favourite things to do when I travel, rather than shopping at the large supermarkets, is to find a little tienda. There is something special about purchasing from a mom & pop store and supporting a local family. There are many little tiendas in Puerto Morelos and today I was on the hunt for fresh squeezed orange juice.
Fruit & Veg
Often times you will see the most interesting things such as a method of packaging, or an obscure product. You also end up meeting the kindest most humble people.
This local fruit & vegetable store that I like, is in the Colonias of Puerto Morelos and down C. Chaca, about 5 short blocks in from the big highway. You will find it on the corner surrounded by bright green painted metal fencing.
On my trek about town last week, I went inside and asked if they had any jugo de naranja, fresh squeezed orange juice. I was delighted when the friendly clerk pointed to a large open cooler full of one litre bottles swimming in ice cold water. There are in fact two big coolers, one seems to have pure juices and the other has mixed juices. That morning I chose a bottle of the orange juice, paid the $30 pesos ($2 CAD) and squirrelled it back to my flat.
Flavour
Hang on! I see a really lovely bird I haven’t seen before…. Aww its the one I have heard tweeting such a lovely song!
Ok I’m back. Lets chat about flavour. One of many things that has spurned my need for travel, is food. Having spent most of my life in Canada, I have grown used to eating, especially fruits and vegetables, that have little to no flavour. A large portion of the produce available in Canada is imported, The weather is just not conducive to growing a variety of produce in most regions.
And most of this imported produce is picked green, soaked in chemicals to retard the ripening, and kept at just above freezing so it wont spoil. It wasn’t until I started travelling in earnest that I figured out that the fruits and veg that I had been eating were not how nature intended them. When you are able to taste and smell a cantaloupe that has been picked when ripe, or a tomato that was allowed to ripen on the plant to full red, you experience a simple, pure pleasure of life.
So Juice
I have been coming to Mexico for years, and one of my favourite indulgences is having fresh squeezed juice every morning. As soon as I land in a new area, I am scouting the closest juice stand. When I return from my walk, the two hour trek about town each morning, the first thing I do after washing my hands is make a drink to take on the terrace.
I mix a cup of fresh juice with a cup of sparkling water, and boy, when I say this is a joy to the taste buds, that is an understatement. The ice cold sweet fruit flavour bubbling on your tongue when you are parched and burning hot is out of this world.
So, back to today. Last week I had purchased orange. Today to my delight they had grapefruit too! So again, squirrelling my bottle across town back to my flat, I almost dove through the door to make my cup of juice. Let me tell you, wow, its these tiny little things that absolutely make my day.
Aren’t I sooooo lucky? Adios amigos 🙂
