Brazil News
| SAO PAULO – The famed Mercado Municipal Paulistano, the Mercadão, celebrates its 79th anniversary on Wednesday. The enormous neo-classical structure was inaugurated on 25 January 1932 after four years of construction.
Mercado Municipal Paulistano (Photo: espaco.gourmet.zip.net)
The central market building, also known as the Mercadão, takes up 22,000 square meters (237,000 square feet), is full of stained glass windows, and attracts people from all over the city – all over the world – for its fresh produce, seafood, meets and food stalls. Some of the vendors have occupied the building continuously since it was opened.
One of the most famous foods you can find, and made famous on the TV show “No Reservations,” with Anthony Bourdain, is the giant Mortadella Sandwich. Known around the world, the sandwich is a must do for anybody who visits the city.
Leonardo Chiappetta, one of the owners of Emporium Chiappetta, says that his grandfather was one of the original traders asked to set up shop in the building. “My grandfather, an Italian immigrant, was in business since 1908. First, he was on Avendida Sao Joao and on 25 March, 1933, he received an invitation to open here,” Chiappetta told G1 Sao Paulo. “I started working here when I was a 6 year old. It has been over 50 years and I'm still here.”
Inside the Mercadão SP (Photo: ex-patinbrasil.blogspot.com)
Antonio Quintas works in one of the oldest stalls at the Mercadão. He sells items for the feijoada, the traditional Saturday meal, he says with pride as he sits at the marble bench where items have been displayed in the same manor since the opening, 79 years ago. “This marble is the same marble that my father put in when he opened the business,” he told G1. “The Mercadão is my life. I come here every day, my children grew up here, it's my family.”
Celebrations will start at about 8:30 pm on Wednesday. There will be concerts, samba dancers and a fireworks display. The party is expected to go on until about 2 am. Cafes and bars on the market's mezzanine will stay open to serve the public.
According to sao-paulo.info, “The market also has wide hours so that you can make a stop whenever it’s most convenient for you: it’s open from 7am to 6pm on Monday through Saturday, with reduced hours on Sunday until 1pm. There are over 1000 workers at the Sao Paulo Mercado Municipal Paulistano on any given day, with around 315 kiosks to serve you. With around 350 tons of food sold daily, and visits by more than 10,000 customers each day during the week – doubling the number on Saturday – this is one place you definitely don’t want to miss out on while visiting Sao Paulo… not to mention that the market’s food is some of the best tasting and most affordable in town!”
Read also: More Articles from Brazil Dispatch
Source(s) for this article: G1 SP/sao-paulo.info
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