Summertime. Yum.
Summertime, in our dense urban communities in Washington Heights and the Bronx, means a colorful and delicious bounty that makes its unlikely way to many corners of our concrete jungle.
Summertime means mangoes as you make your way to the subway on your morning commute, or a large serving of fresh-squeezed orange juice as you run errands. It means a colorful tropical cornucopia of fruits and vegetables at the peak of their season: limes to dress your salad (or margaritas), tomatoes to pummel intoo gazpacho with fresh cilantro, and neat, green slices of avocado to accompany your rice.
Stop for a second to consider the voyage a mango, an avocado, or an orange must make to reach a street corner. An avocado, for example, can start out en un campo in the Dominican Republic, and after a long boat trip, wind up at the Hunts Point Market in the Bronx. There, every day, for the length of summer, Radames, a Bronx resident and vendor stops to pick up a boxload of the green fruit every morning.
“El aguacate es una mina [The avocado is a goldmine],” he says, explaining that they are his top seller. His vegetable cart is a makeshift stand, with shopping cart upon which a few layers of cardboard serve as a long plank from which to choose your fruit or vegetable. Despite the rickety appearance of his stand, Radames says he’s made his living selling fruit for more than ten years.
“There is something about this time of the year, people just want to walk by and buy their vegetables, “ explains the smiling and personable vendor. “They can do it here, and not have to go through the supermarket.”
Radames is one of many such vendors, who daily pick up their merchandise at the Hunts Point Market, and set up shop on the streets of Northern Manhattan and the Bronx, rain or shine. They do so under the blaze of summer heat, near traffic and by the roar of the subway, in neighborhoods where access to fresh fruits and vegetables is sometimes scarce. They provide a healthy, alternative to the “fritura” [fried food] options and a more refreshing option than any sugary soft drink.
On the streets of Northern Manhattan, the mango ladies and gents have become an emblem of summer. Stationed in front of parks and near school yards, they peel and carve the round fruit masterfully, carving out flowers of the fleshy fruit, and “seasoning” it to your liking with salt and lime juice, or without. As you stroll past, you can peel each mango “petal” and enjoy.
There are also the fresh orange juice carts, all properly outfitted with a shiny manual juicer you can spot blocks away. The orange juice sellers serve freshly squeezed orange juice to passersby, who also have options: plain, or with a touch of condensed milk, for a bit of sweetness.
It takes a certain personality to sell the fruits and vegetables. Everyday, from 11 in the morning until 7 in the evening, Chaudry, who sells both fruits and vegetables, puts his marketing scheme to work on the corner of Simpson Street and Westchester Avenue in the Bronx. For him, it’s all about pushing the very fresh nature of his wares, so he decorates his stand with oranges and limes that are sliced in half, so as to tantalize passerby from afar with their gleaming ripeness.
“I pick different fruit to sell everyday, so I have something different all the time,” he explains. “It keeps people coming back.”
Summer treats: This is the second in a series of stories that focus on the summer treats found in Northern Manhattan and the Bronx.
|
