Mercado Orgánica La Cosecha By Maya Osman-Krinsky Photos By Maya Osman-Krinsky
20 bite | winter 2020
I
stumbled into Mercado Orgánica La Cosecha on a Saturday afternoon on an empty stomach. I nearly walked past it— the hand-painted sign out front isn’t as striking as the colorful plastic banners fluttering outside the taquerias on the same street. But through a small entranceway into a gravelfloored, crepe-canopied courtyard, there are twelve stalls surrounding a few rows of picnic tables, each serving uniquely thoughtful and delicious Oaxacan dishes. La Cosecha was founded in 2016 as an institution dedicated to carrying typical regional products. The market serves both tourists and locals with its wide array of produce, prepared foods, and artisanal products. My first stop was Tamales Mixes, a stall
immediately inside of the courtyard. Two huge steaming pots of tamales de frijol and tamales de amarillo de pollo simmered on an outdoor stove. I opted for the latter, and was handed a plate with a sweating plátano leaf holding a robust but delicate tamal that oozed shredded chicken and mole amarillo when I cut into it. Mole amarillo is a staple of Oaxacan cuisine, made from a blend of guajillo, chilhuacle, ají amarillo, and chilcostle chiles, usually less potent than the red or black moles and therefore more versatile, used as a companion to pork, chicken, beef, or vegetables. Next was La China Oaxaqueña, a stall headed by a comal-tending abuela, just two stalls to the right of Tamales Mixes. The blue corn masa specifically caught my eye, pressed fresh and