The first time I stepped into La Merced Market—now over 40 years ago—I was filled with wonder. Six foot mounds of poblano chiles and purple-streaked garlic, giant-sized displays of ancho chiles cascading from one wide wooden bin down to another, aromatic chorizo and barbacoa wafting from intermittent stalls that proffered tacos, gorditas, huaraches and tlacoyos. The meat stalls offered nose-to-tail butchery more thoroughly than I’d ever seen. And the chicharrón prensado—think of it as the equivalent of our salt pork or pork hock used to flavor dishes—loomed like impenetrable, sweet-smelling walls that blocked sight of the just-plucked chickens and fresh fish just behind. Mercado de La Merced, so sprawling that it engulfs a major subway stop and sixteenth-century church, is still, for me, one of the most wondrous places on earth.