Fruterías

Posted on February 25, 2007
Filed Under Montevideo, Food and Drink, Vocabulary | 4 Comments

fruteria-1.JPGFor people who appreciate fresh, ripe and inexpensive fruit, Montevideo is a treat. Sprinkled throughout the city one finds small stores that only sell fruits and vegetables. Some of them also make home deliveries, or pedidos a domicilio. The offerings are usually limited and seasonal, since they tend to be locally produced. So don’t go to a frutería expecting to find exotic, or imported fruits. Large supermarkets are a better place to find those.

In many cases, you can also find organically grown produce with a very small price differential. Usually, the product presentation is very simple, almost careless. Sometimes you’ll find obviously overripe fruit sold along side good-looking, fresh fruit. For example, I noticed bananas are often left on display long after they are too ripe, even for banana bread. I am not sure who would possibly buy them in that state. As they say, buyer beware!

However, the fact that there is usually a frutería within three blocks of wherever you are makes it easy to get your five a day. And once you get the hang of the names of things and how to ask for what you like, it does become addictive. On our recent vacation (summertime), we found ourselves buying a kilo of peaches almost every day! They were perfectly ripe, juicy and wonderfully tasty and cost only 20 to 25 pesos/kilo. We also bought bucket-loads of ripe figs, plums and delicious pears. We also tried apricots, bananas, nectarines, avocados and watermelon. We did not try, due to lack of time, various types of melons and strawberries, which were also in season.

If we were to return a few months later, the choice of fruits and vegetables of course would be different. Unlike the US and Europe, you are less likely to find off-season fruit flown in from far away countries. However, I did see beautiful Spanish oranges being sold at the Devoto, but at first world prices. And, since Uruguay is part of the Mercosur, the supermarkets carry in-season tropical fruits from Brazil, apples and other fruits from Argentina. You can find price information by going to one of the supermarket web sites, like Tienda Inglesa.

Due to the limitations of the kitchen of our apart-hotel, we did not purchase as many vegetables as we would have liked. However most of what we saw was of reasonably good quality and inexpensive. The tomatoes we tried were quite good. Red bell peppers are available everywhere and are remarkably inexpensive compared to those sold in the US. Lettuce of various types are readily available and super cheap. Our favorite, of the commonly found vegetables in Uruguay, is the boniato, or yam. It can be prepared easily in the microwave of the hotel and eaten with a spoon, delicious. Another very Uruguayan vegetable is the zapallito, which looks like a tiny little pumpkin. It is widely used in Uruguayan cuisine and it is often served cooked and stuffed with a variety of tasty morsels.

Below is a vocabulary of fruits and vegetables commonly found in Uruguay:

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4 Responses to “Fruterías”

  1. cobs on April 23rd, 2007 12:30 am

    well… i live in uruguay and most of the info i’ve read here is quite accurate! (even the post about dulce de leche!… though alfajores are great! :D anyway… this comment is so silly that i hesitated to write it… it’s not “fruteras” it’s “fruterias” or “verdulerias”, or “verdurerias”…a “frutera” is called sometimes to the place where u actually put fruits at home.

    good luck comming here!

  2. Brazzie on April 23rd, 2007 7:32 am

    Hi Cobs, thank you for correcting me. You are of course, right. I will be fixing my spelling right away.
    Thank you for taking the time to write.

  3. just4ous7 on May 3rd, 2007 4:05 pm

    thanks for info…please send me a pic of your country’s flag for my children to color. i am not able to locate one on line.

    thanks again

  4. Brazzie on May 3rd, 2007 4:22 pm

    You can find a coloring book of most flags here:
    http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/cbk.html
    Cheers