Feria La Calera – where locals shop

I was thinking it is right time to write little bit about every-day life in the small town and countrysides. Santiago is a big city, in comparison to other parts of Chile it is almost a different country. There is almost 5 million people living in Santiago area, whereas total Chile population is around 18 millions. So how does the life look like outside of Santiago.

Every small town has at least one supermarket, even La Cruz has one. Of course you will find everyone a lot of small shops selling everything from groceries, fruits & veggies, home equipment and clothes.  However, prices of some articles in supermarket (e.g. fruits and veggies) are really high. In fact they are if the same think you can get in the local market for 3 times less. Thus, no surprise, weekend markets (so called ferias) are so popular here in Chile.

And also, La Calera has its feria, on Saturday. So this Saturday I decided to join my host mom and went with her to see the local feria.

The first section when you enter the feria is all about fruits and veggies. It seems like some people love shopping in supermarkets so much that even to feria they brought their own shopping cart.

 

The great part of fruits and veggies in Chile is similar to Poland. A lot of potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, salads, broccoli, and zucchinis. Of course since it is paltas’s capital you can buy it by kilo. It would not be the South America if there would not be huge amount of corn and pumpkins. Other veggies more exotic and expensive in Poland but quite cheap and popular are artichokes, huge bunches of celery. It is quite interesting that pumpkin base totally different size and external color that in either Poland and US. It has light green skin and more flatten size and almost always is old by pieces.

If I could sum up the basic veggies eaten by any Chilean it would be (in the order of frequency and importance): corn, potatoes, onion, tomatoes, garlic, pumpkin, pepper.

 

When it comes to fruits you will find here mostly any type available in Europe. The only more exotic fruits would be pepinio dulce (sweet cucumber), tunas, chirimoyas and membrillas. The last one are known in English as the quince. It is really hard fruit tasting like something between the apple or pear. Tunas – this is a fruit not a fish. Tunas are fruits of the cactus tree. Chirimoyas, also called custard apple are really sweet apples very popular as ingredient for deserts, ice creams, and yougurts. The last one exotic one pepinio dulce I could simply describe as small version of melon but less sweet. So this is something in between cucumber and melon. It is full fall in Chile and you can still find here delicious strawberries popular named here frutillas (in Castilian “fresas”). They are really yummy, just like in Poland.

Moving further in the feria, the stands with all you can find starts. Hence, we can get here all possible stuff we might need in kitchen, bathroom. Clothes, jewellery, cosmetics, you just name it. Moreover there are clothes, but not only for people. Since dog play a crucial role in each Chilean house,  every good dog owner needs to take care of the he alt of his pupil. Thus there is dedicated dog fashion. This season on top are colourful polar outfits. Whatever size is your dog, you will have no problem finding the right clothes for it.

It would not be Chile if feria would not offer a rich selection of bread. basically you can buy here all of the most popular kind of breads eaten by Chileans eve day. Moreover, feria offers the varieties of bread that are not easily available in supermarkets such as chicharrones, that is flat bread with greaves.  This bread is very popular in the South of Chile like Puerto Montt, I think it has its origin there. Here in the centre of Chile is not so easily accesible, however you can find it in ferias or small stores. It is really delicious.

If while browsing around feria’s stands you get hungry or thirsty, do not worry. You can easily get here anything from empanadas, completos (Chilean hot-dogs) or pastels de choclo (corn pie). Everything fresh and homemade.

If you finish shopping for food, clothes and home equipment you can also save your time for going to the pharmacy. The ferias has to offer broad spectrum of medicine for all possible diseases. Everything without prescription.

The closing part of feria is section with secondary stuff. Thus, if you are on the budget you can find yourself here cheap clothes or any other stuff that people no longer need. Kind of flea market, where you can for instance buy for 200 pesos empty nescafe jars. How would pay for jar which most people throw to garbage after meting it content. Who knows. There is a demand, there is a supply.

Maybe when I will be moving out of Chile I will come here to sell some of the stuff I will no longer need in order to save some space in my lugged for souvenirs form other South American countries 🙂