Somehow, Tanger reminded me of Athens. It is called the white city due to its white Medina and buildings; it is by the sea and hilly. Indeed, some things in common.

The Marché Central de Poissons, the fish market hall with its meat section, has the same appearance of raw produce as the central market in Athens, which I blogged about. It’s just smaller and not designed with an outer ring for butchers and an inner ring for fish and seafood. The sections were just next to each other, still as clearly defined as in Athens: one section for fish, one for meat, and one for other produce like olives.

Meat section

The butcher does the cuts on site; there are apparently no ready-made pieces delivered to the market. The view brings the basics of butchering in front of the clientele. It is raw, it is uncensored, it is real. Meat here is not as abstract as in the packages one buys at the supermarket, where everything is so clean that it is hard to imagine the piece of meat you eat was once an animal that was killed.

To my surprise, I saw more beef than sheep meat. I expected the opposite, as my memories of Morocco have always focused on the great-tasting sheep meat. Well, the Marché de Poissons visit is probably not empiric enough.

One of my favorite pieces of an animal has long been the offals. I like their deep, amber taste, which always provides warmth to the body. The butchers were not short of selling them. They hung like curtains on hooks and had at times almost the same look as an abstract painting. I have to add that my passion for offals is larger than my expertise in arts.

Fish section

he focus of the Marché de Poissons is fish; for a city that is at the divide of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, it should not come as a surprise. Even though, I have to say that it was not so easy to find fish in restaurants.

I am not good at distinguishing the different fishes, so I cannot tell what I saw. Certainly, they did not look like freshwater fishes. Some of them had rather frightening appearances, some looked almost funny in their posing appearances, and others were quite colorful.

Shrimps were one thing I expected to see, and they were there in noticeable quantities. Other shellfish were not to be seen, such as lobsters or similar types. I saw fish eggs at more than one stall, but I never noticed that they are used in Moroccan cuisine. I have to dig deeper into this.

What else?

As it was a rather short visit to the market hall, I do not remember everything else sold at the Marché Central de Poissons. But the olives looked really nice! The spices were presented beautifully, as I remembered from my visit to Marrakesh some years ago.

All in all

The Marché Central de Poissons in Tanger is a great way to discover fish and meat as part of Moroccan cuisine. Vendors are gentle; no one refused a picture of the produce to be taken. It is worth a visit while in Tanger.

A little link list

• The Marché de Poissons on Facebook
• The post on the market hall in Athens which has something in common with this market hall
• My other posts on Moroccan markets

The post Fish & meat – Marché Central de Poissons, Tanger / Morocco appeared first on Food & Farmers' Markets.

Surprise: winter is cold

It is cold, it is grey on this winter day in Zagreb, but suddenly there are bright summer colours popping up. Piles of oranges, mandarines, apples, kiwis and the abundant red umbrellas pop up when approaching the Kvatric market (or Kvaternikov Trg). A friendly touch to this day.

Located next to a larger street (Ulica Pavla Šubića), the iron fence around the market gives a feeling of being a protected school yard. And it is busy indeed, despite being smaller than the more famous Dolac market.

Structure & order are everything

The city of Zagreb has a very clear idea on how a market has to be like: it has to look very, very organized and structured. All stalls in the centre have the same tables of the same size of the same shape. Against sun, rain and maybe bad luck the stalls are all protected by the same umbrellas, the ones beach cafés might use as well. There is a section with open stalls which need refrigeration and a glass protected display. Also here the same size, shape and style. The open space is surrounded by permanent structures which look also similar to one another.

The vendors

The vendors, mainly ladies, gave this rigid structure and organization a nice charm. To my relief some of them spoke English. The cheese stands operated by old ladies throughout, my lack of Croatian by big smiles and body language for great conversations.

I don’t know how they made it throughout the day in this cold weather as not everyone had an outdoor heater to get at least some warmth. And the cafés at the market helped as well. The weather did not stop people from leaving the market with their hands full of large bags with merchandise.

The offering – quite local

The offering was seasonal for sure. Oranges, apples everywhere. Cabbage, beets, potatoes, carrots, dried beans of all kinds were the common vegetables. Pickles, open sauerkraut, and whole fermented cabbages were unique and interesting to discover.

Strange to me was the set of egg shops, maybe half a dozen all in permanent structures. So many eggs on one single market. No idea why.

The old ladies of the cheese stalls offered only local ones, no Camembert or so.

The butcher had a shop on the side of the market with classic cuts of beef and pork and some dried sausages. As he allowed me to take some pictures, he took away the tray of sweetbreads as he deemed it as not esthetic enough. What a pity.

One my way out I was surprised to discover the small fish market hall: beautiful selection of Mediterranean fishes like sea devil, calamari and live shrimps. It is almost as living at the sea. Not too many customers were on a shopping spree, an easy time to take some pictures. One fish monger even posed some seafood to get better pictures.

All in all: a typical Zagreb market, a little bit hidden, worth a visit for market lovers who want to experience charming vendors

A little link list:

• A blog post on the market from tatjanapasalic.com
• The official/administrative site for all Zagreb markets from Zagrebački Holding – trznice-zg.hr  with the listing of all the vendors

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