Mercado Central in Belo Horizonte

On Wednesday, our friend Thais took us into the Central Market in Belo Horizonte.

 

 The experience was a bit similar to a visit to the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne,

 

 but everything was undercover and there were MANY things that were different from 'our usual'.

There were at least 6-8 shops that were peppers only. All of these coloured vegetables are peppers of various shapes, colours and sizes. I've never seen such variety. And all along the shelves in this shop are products made from the various shaped and sized pepper.

There were many shops selling all sorts of packaged herbs, many of which I didn't recognise, even when we did translate the name.

And lots of Aloe Vera for sale and sold occasionally by the pot but mostly by the piece.

 But the really interesting things were the linguiças - sausages

  and the mocotó - bone marrow (sweetened and extremely delicious). We were really surprised that we enjoyed the mocotó.

 We also tried, and bought, a little cocada cremosa - coconut cream - the one  on the right in the middle.

But my favourite of all is Doce de Leite - milk candy - which is very like caramel fudge made from sweetened condensed milk. Decadent and delicious.

Our last sweet treat was Goyabada - a  thick jelly-like sweet treat made from Guavas and sugar. 

 

 The 'tastes' are always very generous and this young lady's grandmother was the one who made the Doce de Leite. Yum

and many of the treats in her shop were beautifully wrapped in bright local Brazilian fabric. I'd like to take some of that fabric home.

But not all the interesting things we saw were sweet

like these pigs' tails,

and ears,

and trotters along with ox tongue and tripe!

 And there were pickled quail eggs in tubs,

tobacco sold by the metre in rope form,

 sliced, dried cheese

 

 and liquid butter, sold in bottles and hanging, that comes from the very dry areas in the north of Brazil.

Such an interesting day experiencing some of the sights and tastes of Brazil.