What foodie doesn’t like a good market although I have to confess I hate the term foodie — especially when I think of it in connection to Jamaica. I think in Jamaica it is a contradiction in terms — Doesn’t everyone love food.

There are those people like myself who go to a foreign country and want to buy food in the streets and want to visit local farmer’s markets — again in Jamaica they would be baffled by the term — isn’t all produce coming from the farmers who work the land. I also love to go to supermarkets both the huge air conditioned ones and they little family owned ones that are dimly lit with small fans near the cash register and baked goods, like spiced buns, in the front counter.

The thing about the term foodie is that it is so American and when I’m in Jamaica, if you haven’t picked it up already, I want to get as far away from that as possible. The real Jamaican market experience is as multi sensory experience. The last time I was in the market in JA the music from this one stall was so loud and gyrating that I found myself lingering just to be part of that energy. I wanted to dance right there and had I done so it would have been just fine. No one would ever want me to not enjoy myself while shopping. No one would care so long as I was buying. The market women are famous for how they sit — some thing like a man spread on a NYC subway — and for how they laugh — loud raucous and with abandon.

I remember as a child we use to visit this one stall. The woman who owned it was call Tiny although she was well over 200 lbs. Tiny had one of those laughs and she was a great business woman. If you bought one custard apple she would insist that you buy 2 — “ No miss you havi tek the one beside it. Them 2 marry” Laugh.

It seems that no matter which market you go to the ground provisons – the yarn, sweet potato, cassava, Irish potato, pumpkin, dasheen are all on the floor while the fruitñs always higher up. Often when you drive through the country you will find little stalls