For some reason, I thought the Mercado Central in Fortaleza was a new edition to the city. I was somewhat surprised to discover that the history of the Mercado dates back to 1809 when the city built a centralized location for locals to sell vegetables and meat.
Handicrafts came to the market in the 1930s, when perishable food was no longer allowed in the Mercado. The space was later expanded to accommodate more stalls (1970s) and further expanded in the 90s and brought up to fire code. The space is now a whopping 9,690.75 m² spread over 4-levels.
It appears as though each of the levels has its own specialty. The higher floors with clothing, lace, pillows, blankets, and other cloth crafts, the mid-floors with handicrafts, and the lower levels with food and kitchen wares: coffee, spices, preserved fruit, etc. Below it all is parking.
Ok… so… the real question in all this is… how exactly do they get the crab into the bottle?
