Shopping for Dinner at the Coron Market
When you’re in a place where there are brown-outs almost every day and refrigeration is pretty unreliable you start to think differently about food. In the late afternoons we would join the many Coron locals and make our way to the market in search for some dinner. This became our daily routine.
We could never bring ourselves to buy meat. We are so conditioned to see our meat neatly wrapped in plastic and styrofoam we become disconnected to the animal it came from. Here, heads, snouts and guts hang beside the more common cuts of meat. It was a shock to see a pile of meat laying on a bare counter with pesky flies landing every once in a while. Ironically, it’s probably the freshest you will find.
Turning our attention to the very wet fish aisle, ‘The Chef’ would cruise up and down until something got his attention. He would take his time as the variety of fish was amazing and confusing. After paying for his pick we would make our way to the vegetable section then pick up some bread at the bakery on the way back.
At home, our friend ‘King’ always had the dubious honour of being sous chef, meaning he got to do all the dirty work like cleaning and filleting the fish. I probably had the best role – happy eater and dishwasher!
This post is part of the Weekly Photo Challenge: Fresh.
fresh fish I love
Me too….and fresh shrimp, fresh lobster!
Delicious post! I can almost taste it from here.
Great interpretation. I can so related to this! And I completely understand how you feel about buying the meat and the alternative reality of frozen imported meat from dubious freezers in supermarkets with brown outs. Its a tough choice. Thanks for sharing.
It’s funny. We knew the meat we were eating at restaurants probably came from the market but that didn’t seem to bother us.
I can’t wait to do the same. In our case we have a butcher in our small town so you just call in your order and they deliver the meat to your house or there’s a friendly Italian who has settled there and he’s got refrigerated meat instead of being displayed in the open.
We’ll be doing it again soon when we visit Coron in May.
Ooooh, nothing beats FRESH seafood. The fish photos you have, its called parrotfish (molmol in Bisaya), it is one of my favorite fishes in the whole wide world! 🙂
We didn’t try that one. What’s the best way to cook it? Maybe when we’re in Coron in May we’ll give it a try.
I love it grilled or fried or fish paksiw (a local dish). Either way, it is so good. 🙂
Great post, and missing the Philippines ❤
We miss it too, especially after we had such a cold, snowy winter. We’ll be back in Coron at the end of May and can’t wait.