Mexican market treats

I watch in amazement as the elderly señor sitting opposite me bites into a fiery green chilli pepper, crunching and swallowing it as calmly as you or I would eat an apple. It’s lunchtime, and Mexico City’s vibrant Tianguis de Pachuca street market is a hive of activity, with folks of all ages flocking from all over the city to sample the market’s speciality – mixiotes, a slow-cooked, aromatic, spiced mutton stew that is best when seasoned with the aforementioned chillis and served in corn tortillas.

The Mexican headquarters of various multi-national law and accounting firms are just five minutes away on the other side of Paseo De La Reforma – the city’s main east-west artery – but the contrast between their high-pressure world and the jovial, informal atmosphere of the tianguis could not be greater. The idea of wolfing down your lunch in 20 minutes whilst chained to your desk is anathema to most Mexicans – and rightly so.

“Que le damos, guero?” A beaming lady with a startlingly loud voice is leaning through a gap in the various pyramids of tropical fruit that dominate her stall, offering me a small slice of papaya doused in lime juice. Given the sweltering temperatures, I am powerless to resist. A breakfast of papaya is rumoured to be a good hangover cure, and certainly, the combination of the fruit’s juicy flesh and the sharp citrus tang of the lime juice would reinvigorate even the most pickled of booze-hounds. It’s also a welcome antidote to the eye-watering strength of those chillies, of which many varieties are abundant here.

The aforementioned señor leans back in his chair and closes his eyes, clearly in the mood for a brief siesta, and I decide to follow his lead. Having arrived hungry and parched, I’m now well sated by a feast best described as colourful, exotic and blissfully unhurried – much like the people that lovingly prepared it.