Every Sunday in Mancha Blanca
Every Sunday we have our own small tradition.
We get into the car and drive across half the island to the agricultural market in Mancha Blanca.
Not because we have to.
Because we want to.
At some point it stopped being shopping and became a ritual.
The drive takes us through some of the landscapes that first made us fall in love with Lanzarote.
La Geria.
The volcanic world around Timanfaya.
The black and green colours that seem impossible the first time you see them.
We have driven this road countless times.
Yet it rarely feels ordinary.
A reason to leave the house early.
A reason to see what the island is producing this week.
A reason to discover something new.
Today it was kohlrabi.
Until recently, I didn't even know kohlrabi was grown on Lanzarote.
That seems to happen a lot here.
Just when you think you know the island, it reveals something else.
The first thing you notice at the market is that nothing looks perfect.
The tomatoes are not identical.
The strawberries are not all the same size.
Some fruit is marked by the sun, the wind or simply by life itself.
In a supermarket, some of it might never make it onto the shelves.
Yet somehow it tastes infinitely better.
The onions taste like onions.
The tomatoes taste like tomatoes.
It sounds ridiculous to write that, but anyone who has tasted truly local produce knows exactly what I mean.
These fruits and vegetables are not beautiful in the way supermarkets define beauty.
But they have character.
And flavour.
A lot of flavour.
To be fair, even supermarket produce in Spain is often remarkably good.
For years we bought our fruit and vegetables in Mercadona or Hiperdino and we genuinely thought we were already experiencing the flavours of Lanzarote.
Compared to what we were used to buying back home, everything seemed fresher, sweeter and more intense.
And honestly, it was.
But after moving here and discovering local markets, farmers and seasonal produce, we realised there was another level entirely.
The difference is difficult to explain until you taste it yourself.
A tomato picked when it is ready.
Mangoes grown a few kilometres away.
Potatoes from El Jable.
Fruit that never travelled across Europe before reaching your plate.
Perhaps the biggest surprise for us were the strawberries.
If someone had asked me years ago where to find exceptional strawberries, Lanzarote would have been one of the last places I mentioned.
Like many Poles, I grew up believing that Polish strawberries were impossible to beat.
Then we tasted the strawberries grown here.
Small.
Intensely fragrant.
Unbelievably sweet.
Not always beautiful.
Not always perfectly shaped.
But bursting with flavour.
Once again, the island surprised us.
As it often does.
There is another reason we keep returning every Sunday.
It is not only about the fruit and vegetables.
It is about the people.
Over time we started buying from the same two stalls.
The people behind them know us now.
They recognise our car.
We greet each other with hugs and kisses before we even start talking about what we want to buy.
They tell us what arrived this week.
What will be ready next Sunday.
Whether the mulberries are finally in season.
Sometimes, as we are leaving, they quietly add a handful of rocket, basil or parsley to our bags.
What strikes me every week is how natural it all feels.
Their warmth is not a sales technique.
It is not customer service training.
It is not a loyalty programme.
Nobody is trying to build a brand.
Nobody is trying to create an experience.
They are simply pleased to see you.
Genuinely pleased.
They ask how you are.
They remember what you bought last week.
They tell you what will be ready next Sunday.
And when they hand you a bunch of basil or a handful of rocket, it feels less like a gift from a vendor and more like a gesture from a neighbour.
We buy enough fruit and vegetables for the entire week.
Usually far more than most people.
When mulberry season arrives, we buy them by the kilogram because it lasts only a few weeks.
We freeze them and later turn them into tarts for ourselves and sometimes for our guests.
Back home, the story continues.
The strawberries become a tart.
The tomatoes become sauces.
The herbs disappear into almost everything we cook.
Somewhere along the way we started eating less and less meat.
Not because of a diet.
Not because of a philosophy.
Simply because when the ingredients are this good, they do not need much else.
A perfectly ripe tomato.
Fresh basil.
Good olive oil.
Sometimes that is enough.
More than enough.
Looking at the table in the evening, I sometimes think about how much of this island we missed during all those years when we came here only on holiday.
We thought we knew Lanzarote.
In reality, we only knew a small part of it.
Fifteen years of holidays.
And somehow we never discovered the markets.
The farmers.
The strawberries.
The tomatoes.
The people who greet us with a hug before asking what we would like to buy.
It turns out that even after fifteen years, an island can still surprise you.
