El Mercado del Mar Comes to Town

An established vendor from Zapopan´s fabulous Mercado del Mar just arrived in West Ajijic and a finer addition to the local gastronomic scene could not be more welcome. Super Pescaderia Pacifico is now open with a branch in La Huerta Shopping Center with a fabulous variety of fresh and frozen fish and shellfish and the selection and quality is unheard of here in Ajijic. These foks carry fish and shellfish never before seen here at the lake. They even have conch as well as varieties of lobster and you name it.

As this is a branch of the company´s main retail/wholesale outlet in the Mercado del Mar which, as those knowledgable about seafood empororia in West Central Mexico will know, is the primary wholesale/retail outlet for the freshest seafood in all of Jalisco and beyond, local customers can depend on buying the freshest and best quality seafood available hereabouts at all times. If you like seafood, life just improved here exponentially. Dawg is pleased to say the least.

Today, (Sunday) Dawg was there to buy frozen shrimp and the place was teeming with Tapatios down for the long weekend.

This hick town has certainly changed since Dawg arrived here in 2001.

You were a few days late, mutt. It has already been discussed.

Fish market

Solovino wrote:You were a few days late, mutt. It has already been discussed.

Fish market

It occured to Mutt that readers might benefit from learned disclosure rather that claptrap from veterans of Long John Silver´s or Red Lobster´s All-The-Shrimp-You-Can-Eat Thursdays. Perhaps less time denuding the once virgin forests of Chiapas and more time enjoying that state´s succulent seafood would have provided our correspondent with a more balanced viewpoint. Go back to your tinned sardines.

hound dog wrote:

Solovino wrote:You were a few days late, mutt. It has already been discussed.

Fish market

It occured to Mutt that readers might benefit from learned disclosure rather that claptrap from veterans of Long John Silver´s or Red Lobster´s All-The-Shrimp-You-Can-Eat Thursdays. Perhaps less time denuding the once virgin forests of Chiapas and more time enjoying that state´s succulent seafood would have provided our correspondent with a more balance viewpoint.

You learned there is a new fish market at the lake. You disclosed this fact. You want a medal for this?

We have been enjoying it since the day it opened; yesterday fresh black mussels, today fresh tuna. Tomorrow who knows? Yippee!

Old news Bubba

beautiful red snapper fresh from the pacific...

the black mussels, black oysters , black escargots fresh from the gulf... are half price :)

That the market is new is old news. The info on who they are and where they come from is not. Gracias Dawg.

hound dog wrote: Go back to your tinned sardines.

We ate a lot of frijoles puercos (canned sardines and chorizo were principal ingredients) in the camps. Let's just say constipation was never a concern.

Speaking of sardines. Many years ago I was hanging around on the coast of Jalisco and I happened to meet a crusty old gringo sport fisherman that spent his winters in a beat up pickup parked on what was the then unspoiled sand bar that gave Barra de Navidad its name. Old Felipe never missed an opportunity to troll for large bill fish in his small deep v aluminum wide bottom using live bait (mullet) that he caught by dragging a gill net along the shore of the lagoon in Barra. Actually, we would stretch the net between the 2 of us and as he stood stationary along the bank, I would drag the net in a large semicircle into the current. In this way he would get his bait fish and I'd take home the night's dinner for my troubles.

Early one Sunday morning Felipe showed up at my palapa with a young Mexican pal and talked me into dragging the net at the Melaque end of the beach to see what we could come up with. So the young Mexican and I took turns dragging the net out into the surf. After about 3 attempts with little to show I started back out when suddenly the water turned black with a large school of sardines. We needed help from a few locals who had been casting tarrayas nearby to drag the net back to shore. We had easily several hundred kilos of fresh sardines. The guys who helped drag the net to the beach each carried off a 5 gallon cubeta full of fish and we had enough to fill at least another 20 buckets.

So we spent that afternoon driving the back streets of Barra giving away sardines. Some dope-smoking young Americans that were hanging around town took a bucket home, more than they really could consume. The next morning they decided to toss the ones they didn't eat over the fence to feed the neighbor's chickens and went off to the beach. When they came back early that afternoon and were about a block from their hut they noticed a couple of cops standing by the gate. They immediately freaked out and figured the cops had found their sizeable stash of mota, (a kilo only cost about 100 pesos back then) and considered running off, leaving all of their belongings behind. When they finally worked up the courage to see what the problem was they found out that the chickens had died from eating the sardines and the neighbor lady brought the cops over to demand payment. Those dudes were so excited they weren't busted for weed they happily overpaid for the damages.

hound dog - Two weeks old news on your part. You didn't read very far down where I posted it on September 5. We bought 16 - 20 frozen shrimp and had them the next night as Baked Stuffed Shrimp. Later in the week, we bought Tilapia for tomorrow night.

You're right about one thing, it's time we had a great Seafood store in Ajijic other than those "pseudo" seafood stores that stink.

[quote="Solovino"]

hound dog wrote: Go back to your tinned sardines.

Solovino Writes:
"We ate a lot of frijoles puercos (canned sardines and chorizo were principal ingredients) in the camps. Let's just say constipation was never a concern.

Speaking of sardines. (We had some luck there and...
So we spent that afternoon driving the back streets of Barra giving away sardines. Some dope-smoking young Americans that were hanging around town took a bucket home, more than they really could consume. The next morning they decided to toss the ones they didn't eat over the fence to feed the neighbor's chickens and went off to the beach. When they came back early that afternoon and were about a block from their hut they noticed a couple of cops standing by the gate. They immediately freaked out and figured the cops had found their sizeable stash of mota, (a kilo only cost about 100 pesos back then) and considered running off, leaving all of their belongings behind. When they finally worked up the courage to see what the problem was they found out that the chickens had died from eating the sardines and the neighbor lady brought the cops over to demand payment. Those dudes were so excited they weren't busted for weed they happily overpaid for the damages."


As Dawg was lucky enough to have married a Frog and has, thus, over the past 40 years spent much time in France eating incomparable seafood including wonderful fresh caught sardines barbequed over coals in the backyard of my wife´s now deceased grandmother who then lived in Marseilles, Dawg knows three important things about fresh sardines that in no way can be understood by those unitiated in their consumption:
* They are incomparably better than anything one ever imagined coming in a can.
* They stink to high heaven while cooking and, thus, must be cooked outdoors to avoid foul odors making one´s house uninhabitable for a time thereafter. The same, to a lesser extent, may be said of collard greens in Dawg´s native Alabama which yo mama should never cook for dinner on yo fust date with a neighborhood guhl.
* Fresh sardines must be cooked and consumed forthwith upon harvesting or they can be particularly dangerous and make you really, really sick. The stoned morons who threw those sardines over the fence to feed the neighbor´s chickens deserved the full weight of the law for killing those poor innocent babies and the same could be said of the ignorants running around Barra giving away sardines with absolutely no understanding of this critical feature of sardine consumption. There is no telling how many campesinos died that day from ingesting inappropriately harvested and prepared sardines but, then, clearly, chickens with proper advocacy, have more rights than campesinos on Jalisco´s coastal enclaves.

Dawg was trying to convey the message to his fellow hicks (Ajihickians as opposed to neighboring Yokeltepeckians) that the new seafood place in Ajijic is connected with a reputable parent joint located in the Mercado del Mar in Zapopan which is a critically important thing to know since both the supply chain and retail/wholesale turnover of seafood are those factors that make the consumer either content or afflicted from digestive disorders related to the consumption of old and rancid seafood.Dawg was first introduced to vendors at the Mercado del Mar in 2001 by a local restaurateur who advised Dawg that knowing your seafood vendor was important anywhere but especially in Mexico.

hound dog wrote: * Fresh sardines must be cooked and consumed forthwith upon harvesting or they can be particularly dangerous and make you really, really sick or, perhaps, even dead as were those chickens in the above tale by Solovino who should stick to deforestation in the Lacandon and leave fishing to those more knowledgeable about same.

As if it was the first time the Jalisco coastal inhabitants had consumed fresh sardines. They went directly from the ocean into the fire a few hundred yards off the beach while his frog relatives bought theirs through the normal retail channels. Just because he made a few voyages on a shrimper out of some backwater bayou doesn't qualify him as an expert fishmonger.

hound dog wrote:The stoned morons who threw those sardines over the fence to feed the neighbor´s chickens deserved the full weight of the law for killing those poor innocent babies and the same could be said of the ignorant __ running around Barra giving away sardines with absolutely no understanding of this critical feature of sardine consumption. There is no telling how many campesinos died that day from ingesting inappropriately harvested and prepared sardines but, then, clearly, chickens with proper advocacy, have more rights than campesinos on Jalisco´s coastal enclaves.

OK, people on the coast are more commonly referred to as costeños and although poor, have a pretty good handle of what sort of sea creatures can be safely consumed. And as far as the stoners who fed the neighbor's chickens their last supper, they were doing so on the request of that same neighbor who had kindly asked them help feed the birds by tossing their tables craps into her yard.

My wife was born at the coast and lived there until she came to the city at the start of high school. Her father at one time had a seafood wholesale business with large walk in refrigerators. This was at a time when shrimpers were common off the Jalisco and Colima coasts. My darling esposa tells me of the many times she accompanied her father out to the shrimpers at anchor when he would purchase several tons at a time. Whenever she visits the mercado del mar (and this goes for her sisters who live here also) she knows exactly what she is buying. I'll bet you can't tell the difference between farm raised and wild shrimp by sight alone.

I'd like to know how to tell the difference between farm raised and wild shrimp by sight alone please.

I've found that the farm raised tend to be poopless because, since they are going to be harvested, they don't get fed.

There's lots of poop in the wild ones.

If a comparison can be made with farm raised trout, my guess is that the color will be different. Assuming that farm raised trout hasn't been treated with "color or colour" by the stores, its meat tends to be a brownish yellow color/colour. Natural trout harvested from natural conditions should have an almost salmon colored/coloured meat assuming it was harvested from a cold water lake with natural feed.

I know nothing about shrimp other than the fact that I am deathly allergic to it!

[quote="Solovino. I'll bet you can't tell the difference between farm raised and wild shrimp by sight alone.[/quote]

I think you may be right about that Solovino. As Dawg was raised near the Alabama coast and always bought my shrimp from shrimpboats just arrived from the waters of the Gulf along the shores of Mobile Bay or, alternatively, from Gulf Coast beachside fish mongers who would never be caught dead selling farm raised shrimp, it is entirely possible I have never seen a farm raised shrimp unless it was in some God-forsaken Chinese restaurant at Lakeside already stir-fried in some sauce designed to hide the lackluster quality of farm raised seafood.

Dawg can tell you, however, where to find the best wild shrimp on the planet based upon the childhood memories of my darlin´ wife who spent many summers in the small fishing commune of Gujan-Mestras on Arcachon Bay on the Atlantic Coast of France. Her granddad was famous in the family for bringing home the most beautiful and succulent shrimp from his shrimping excursions there in Gujan-Mestras and the family raved about the excellent quality of that shrimp until one day when they caught him shrimping directly in front of a local sewage outlet expelling (this was the 1950s, after all) the community´s raw, untreated sewage into the bay. The plumpest most delectible shrimp you ever tasted.

hound dog wrote: .....until one day when they caught him shrimping directly in front of a local sewage outlet expelling (this was the 1950s, after all) the community´s raw, untreated sewage into the bay. The plumpest most delectible shrimp you ever tasted.

C'mon mutt, are you stealing your material these days?

We used to walk across the bridge to the big city on the other side and fish for carp near a sewer outlet the spewed raw sewage into the river. The carp loved it. Took some talent to entice them to hit on the dough balls we used for bait. They preferred small turds.

Q. What's the difference between a southern zoo and a northern zoo?
A. The southern zoo has a description of the animal along with a recipe.

[quote="Solovino"]

hound dog wrote: .....until one day when they caught him shrimping directly in front of a local sewage outlet expelling (this was the 1950s, after all) the community´s raw, untreated sewage into the bay. The plumpest most delectible shrimp you ever tasted.

C'mon mutt, are you stealing your material these days?

We used to walk across the bridge to the big city on the other side and fish for carp near a sewer outlet the spewed raw sewage into the river. The carp loved it. Took some talent to entice them to hit on the dough balls we used for bait. They preferred small turds.[/quote]


Mutt´ll never foget his train ride into Madras (now Chennai), Tamil Nadu from Calcutta ( now Kolkota), West Bengal in 1969. A considerable but comfortable undertaking in those days on the Indian National Railway developed by the British but a train ride of extraordinary value at about the equivalent in those days of a second class fare (as opposed to third class) approaching $1.00US Dollar at most for a journey approaching 1,700 Kilometers. The train tracks followed the edge of the primary river (The Cooum) as it meandered through the urban zone of central Madras and, as the train from Calcutta arrived in the early morning hour at about 6:00AM local time, locals were out and about preparing for the morning commute squatting and sh*tting en masse in the river while often reading the morning papers just as you and I might sh*t privately in a commode in our bathrooms here in Mexico. This effluent plus the raw effluent from the sewers of this city of, maybe, 8,000,000 people found its way to the Bay of Bengal where Dawg observed a huge fishing fleet hovering about the mouth of the river hauling in the day´s catch which, it seems, was most prolific in the area where the local fish could gulp up those human turds with abandon and grow fat and sassy. Dawg won´t even relate to you his observations in the utterly filthy sacred Hooghly River tributary of the Ganges in those days where religious folk went to cleanse themselves in raw sewage rendered pure and holy by religious decree. Dawg finds it fascinating that Solovino thinks that someone who experienced India in the 1960s needs to lift experiences from Mexicans who have never seen a ten pound bright green fly engorged with fly sh*t trying to land on one´s lips to suck up the succulent lip boogers available for a morning repast. Better wake up, boy.

What a hoot! If we were at the Fat Lady in Jack London Square I'd gladly treat you to your libation of choice! Those were the days my friend.

Solovino wrote: I'll bet you can't tell the difference between farm raised and wild shrimp by sight alone.

Are you going to tell us the answer to this statement? Been waiting for you to share your knowledge.

ferret wrote: Are you going to tell us the answer to this statement? Been waiting for you to share your knowledge.

You mentioned the other day that you preferred not to read my posts and referred to me in a very unflattering way. Asshole I believe was your choice of words.You have the right to express your opinion. And I similarly have the right to ignore your queries. We reap what we sow.

hound dog wrote:[
Dawg finds it fascinating that Solovino thinks that someone who experienced India in the 1960s needs to lift experiences from Mexicans who have never seen a ten pound bright green fly engorged with fly sh*t trying to land on one´s lips to suck up the succulent lip boogers available for a morning repast. Better wake up, boy.

Actually mutt, been to Madras on several occasions. Helped Uncle Sam and the American taxpayer deliver thousands of tons of "handshake" cargo via the World Food Program. Along with visits to many other parts of that dreadful country including Paradip, located at the mouth of the Mahanadi River. The water so filthy and funky we couldn't run our evaporators and made an unprecedented 36 hour trip out into the deeper parts of the Bay of Bengal to refresh our freshwater supply. Madras was a sophisticated and pristine harbor in comparison. Want to hear about Chalna and Chittagong? The flies there carried off unattended babies.

Your anecdotes bring to mind the old joke "what's the difference between a sea story and a fairy tale"?

Solovino wrote:

ferret wrote: Are you going to tell us the answer to this statement? Been waiting for you to share your knowledge.

You mentioned the other day that you preferred not to read my posts and referred to me in a very unflattering way. Asshole I believe was your choice of words.You have the right to express your opinion. And I similarly have the right to ignore your queries. We reap what we sow.

As you wish.

Interestingly enough, I normally quite enjoy reading your posts...when you're not being an asshole. The exchange between you and CanuckBob belonged in a men's locker room not on a public forum. Yawn!