If you take a day like today
and add to it some loose change (9,400 pesos, about $20 US)
and add a walk to and from the Vega Central (major fruit and veg market in Santiago), and two friends who amble, rather than make a surgical strike, well then, you just might end up with what’s pictured here.
And it is:
kaki (persimmons)
luche (dulse, a kind of seaweed)
alcachofas (artichokes)
espinacas (spinach)
morrones (red peppers)
limones (lemons)
brucelas (brussels sprouts)
berenjena (eggplant)
gengibre (ginger)
porotos blancos (broad beans)
porotos no sé cuantos (don’t remember the Peruvian name for these, in English they’re black-eyed peas and most Chileans have probably never seen them).
maní (peanuts)
I neglected to mention the tiny frasquito (bottle) in front of all the food. This actually pushed me over the limit by a teeny bit, about a dollar. It’s a homeopathic cold remedy based on echinacea and propolis that I bought from the Knop Pharmacy just in case eating all this healthy food before it spoils doesn’t cure me, I’ve got back up plan. Just ten little mysteriously sweet white pellets under the tongue three times a day. Believe it or not, I’d rather eat the brussels sprouts.
I can’t help you with the black eyed peas, but at least in my house, the big white beans are called poroto pallar. They are awesome in broth.
that’s what they were calling them, pallares. I’m excited to eat them, but I’ve still got some cooked black beans to get through before tehy’re up! thanks. In Puerto Rico the black-eyed peas are called carita, but I can’t remember what the Peruvian woman told me they call them there.