Caribbean Public Foodmaps: La Plaza del Mercado in San Juan and El Mercado Modelo in Santo Domingo

• In Event: Food Systems, Nutrition, and Culture in the Spanish Caribbean: Landscapes and Discourses

Abstract

This paper offers comparative notes about my new research on food markets in the context of urban transformations in the Caribbean. It focuses on Plaza del Mercado de Río Piedras (San Juan, Puerto Rico), and in Mercado Modelo (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) to comparatively explore a dimension of food and place-memory. The Plaza del Mercado is located in an area of urban decay, after attempts at urban redevelopment in Río Piedras. The Mercado Modelo in Santo Domingo is located centrically around Avenida Mella, which is a packed commercial hub for both established businesses and informal buhoneros (vendors of assorted merchandise). The paper draws from archival and field research around these food markets and presents them as concrete sites of food commerce and marketplaces—with all their rich implications—as well as a pilgrimage of sorts for customers and as spaces of potential struggles for preservation of vernacular landscapes. The foodways, cuisines, and diets of this region as well as their effects on people’s health have been conditioned by ecological transformations, food insecurity, and labor exploitation since the early years of Spanish colonialism. In this context, food markets are becoming significant elements in struggles for food security and self-sufficiency. Thus, contrasting the effects of the colonial modernization process of San Juan during the 1950s and the urban transformation of 1940s Santo Domingo (formerly Ciudad Trujillo), promises to be productive in understanding the role of food, labor, and state policies in the design and periodic interventions into urban re-structuring.

Author

• Lidia Marte, Universidad de Puerto Rico-Recinto de Rio Piedras