This was meant to be a picture of the fish aisle, but I didn’t want to seem like a tourist or get elbowed to death by little Catalan grandmas, so I took it here, in a less crowded space. Barcelona is full of markets, this one - the Mercat de Sant Antoni - is probably one of the most local and aggressive. Everyone knows each other: the sellers yell abuse at in each other in good jest and grocery shopping is combined with socializing.

Watching Alex buy fish I began to doubt my preference for sterile, anonymous grocery stores. The people in the market are deeply connected to their produce, fish and meat. They know it well, they’re happy to give you recommendations or advice and they are engaged in a way that under paid grocery store clerks never are.

It’s not scalable, but it doesn’t matter.