Field Notes
p. 110
Field notes: a morning in Tavira
Four hours, one notebook and a market that closes at noon.
07:10. The fish market is already loud. Octopus, curled and grey, on crushed ice; a crate of red mullet still twitching. A woman in a pink apron is arguing about the price of clams and winning.
08:30. Coffee and a pastel de nata at the counter of a café that has no name, only a number above the door. Three fishermen discuss the wind. Nobody looks at their phone.
10:00. The fruit hall: figs, the last of the melons, and the first oranges, still green-skinned and sour.
11:45. Shutters coming down. Lunch, somebody tells me, starts at one, and it would be rude to be early.
“By eleven the octopus has gone and the gossip is just starting.”
About the writer
Inês Carvalho
Inês writes about markets, migration and the economics of what we eat. She has edited Octavo’s reportage section since the first issue and still buys her fish from the same stall in Campo de Ourique.
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