The joy of Visiting local vegetable markets!!

Since childhood I m really fond of Vegetable market. I remember in Mumbai I used to accompany my mom for vegetable shopping in Byculla sabji Mandi and I used to be very happy seeing fresh vegetables arranged in different stalls. My vegetable watching was so deep that often I used to give name of the vegetables to colours  like tomato red ,chilli red,lemon yellow, peas green colour etc. and my drawing teacher used to be really annoyed with me .
My mom is a wise shopper since beginning,she knows market rates and I remember her bargaining with vegetable seller everytime . She was a regular visitor to Mandi so everyone knew her . I could see her selecting each and every vegetable and after carefully seeing it she used to buy. She often told me small small things while buying vegetables, like White onion has medicinal significance so always buy white one ,select small organic tomatoes and avoid buying huge hybrid veggies. How to select green leafy vegetables, how to check freshness of okra/Bhindi , why small pink garlic is better than the white bigger one, how to buy some seasonal vegetables in bulk in order to stock them for rest of the year . So many such small but very important things I learnt  from her and still trying to learn.


 After  marriage when my husband was posted in Amaravati ,it was my first time to go alone to a vegetable market. So happily with my maid and driver I went to Local sabji Mandi. Amravati Mandi was huge and names of the vegetables were different from Mumbai or Nasik. In vidarbh many vegetables names are in Hindi unlike western Maharashtra. So most of the times either me or the vegetables seller used to get confused.


After Amaravati when we got transferred to Sindhudurg in Konkan the picture was so different. Vegetable market in the district headquarter Oras was on Sunday and very small. In Konkan main staple food is fish and rice so there were only selected vegetables in the market. In Sindhudurg one vegetable is very famous that’s a red leafy veg which is Amaranth leaves locally called  Lal bhaji . It’s considered very rich in iron .

Green leafy veggies were rare and even other exotic vegetables were not available there. For me it was disappointing to buy only few vegetables every week. But the best part in Konkan was visiting local Fish markets and when I started going there like vegetable market , every time I felt so nice to see different varieties of fresh sea food. It was so fresh all the time and that was the best part of staying in a coastal area.

After Konkan it was Khandesh, when we shifted to Nandurbar, which is the Tribal district vegetable market was rich in different varieties of vegetables. Nandurbar is very famous for its dry red chillies as we all know but there were many other tribal vegetables in the local Mandai like taakla, phodshi ,kartule, pokla etc.  which are rich in vitamins and very delicious in taste.

 Then we shifted to Pune.once in a week early morning I used to go to mahatma Phule mandai  in Pune which is the biggest one and reminded me of my childhood visits to byculla market. It’s amazing to see the varieties and quantities of vegetables. It’s more like a farmers market on a market day and exotic veggies and salads at very reasonable price than malls . I miss fresh Avocados and broccoli which we get in Pune along with lettuce ,celery and what not. There is a flower maket near Mandai and the beautiful varieties of exotic flowers are out of our imagination.


As we are in Aurangabad now , which is in marathvada region, there are many local vegetables available here and vegetable market is also very rich in varieties except during summers.we get all vegetables here and it’s good that most of the time they are organic straight from the farm. Farmers market is always a best option and I glad nowadays people are giving more importance to organic and   Fresh grown vegetables.
So many different experiences of different vegetable markets..till then Happy shopping!!