If you’ve read some of our previous posts, you know that one of us grew up working in a grocery store. So one of his great pleasures is to inspect such stores in whatever place we find ourselves. And we both find ourselves attracted to outdoor markets especially. Those are usually the places where you find the stuff that’s really local to a place.
Here in Kotor we live at the top of a steep hill (which gives us the great view!) But when wedescend we have one grocery store, and another, next door, located inside a large shopping mall. (We don’t pretend to understand why, but it happened in Istanbul too.) We like both of them, though the one in the mall seems to have a few nicer things.
So what have we discovered? Well, for one thing, that the people of Kotor like meat! Both the fresh kind and the preserved kind (smoked, salted, etc.). There is quite a lot of beef, chicken, and (especially) pork. They also really like chocolate, both straight and in a variety of biscuits, cookies, and cakes.
As for wine, there’s a lot of that too, with the prices ranging from amazingly inexpensive (the local wines sell for less that €5 a bottle, and they are good! You can also get imported wine from France, Italy, etc., but that costs a lot more. So far we’ve had no complaints about the local.
The grocery fruits and vegetables are not spectacular, but for those we have discovered the farmer’s market. This is held every Saturday morning right outside the walls of the old city (so not very far from us) and here there is an amazing variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, plants, meats, fresh fish, cheese, and lots else. Like many a market, a number of the vendors seem to us to be selling the exact same thing, but it’s great to see so many beautiful things nonetheless.
The market abounds in bright red peppers (these are a pepper-loving people), locally made cheeses (cow, goat, and sheep), cabbages, pomegranates (again, a local favourite), honey (of many flavours), and brandies (a significant number of them home-made). Many of the merchants speak very little English, but we have managed to get by in the time-honoured manner of pointing and shaking our heads.
So we think we’ll be alright food-wise here in Kotor. If the food here lacks the variety and sophistication of some, it easily makes up for it in the great tastes of what it does have. And for us that’s always enough.
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