You Are What You Eat
It’s Saturday at lunchtime in Valencia’s Central Market, the busiest day and time of the week. With unbelievable care and precision, Maria Angeles Rodriguez Mompó darts from customer to customer, greeting them, giving them their due time, and cooking suggestions.
“What get’s me out of bed is the human element of my work,” Maria says. “I’ve had customers that have been very dry or distant. Then, little by little, they begin to trust me, to crack a smile. It’s beautiful. And when they leave you and they wish you a good day, that, is amazing. After I have a positive interaction, everything goes better for me than it would have, otherwise.”
Valencia’s Mercat Central’s 400 merchant vendors offer a wide array of options for anyone looking for an incredible home-cooked meal and for any local restaurants that desire high-quality stock. A modernist building, the market stands tall with tinted windows and uniform white walkways that evenly divide all of the stands.
Despite the uniformity, one stand is noticeably different than the others. As opposed to the clientele of surrounding stands, the customers at “Frutas Angelita” tend to linger, leaving the stand with arms full and eyes brighter than they were when they first approached the colorful fruit and vegetable stand. This phenomenon can only be attributed to Maria Angeles Rodriguez Mompó whose compassion is just as interminable as her name.
Maria, in a light green t-shirt and pine-green apron matching the onion sprout that lay to her right, comes down three steps from her stand to give a customer a hug and a kiss.
She has been around Europe and she believes she has never encountered a market that would be comparable to El Mercat Central. Even La Boqueria in Barcelona, she finds distant, cold. The stands are too high and it seems as though there is a divide between the customers and the sellers, as if the human element is missing.
“My whole family has always been involved in agriculture. Now, I’m more involved in that world than I ever had been before. So, I’m even more passionate. And I love it, of course. You have to love what you do and you have to do it well. If you don’t, you won’t survive.”
Maria also preaches the importance and value in becoming educated and acquiring a specialty. Then, if a simpler life is chosen, it would be chosen with open eyes and an open heart.
“If I weren’t fulfilled by this job I wouldn’t be here. If you pay attention, there are many people working in this business who don’t like what they do, and it’s noticeable. You can see it in the way in which they interact with their customers. They’re very serious, very strange. I don’t understand it.”
Maria claims her magnetic mannerisms and warm, crinkly-eyed smiles are inherited. When their mother, Angela, became ill, Maria and her brother, Jaime, dropped everything to assist her at the market and work by her side. Maria left behind a career as a chemical engineer and Jaime quit his job manufacturing metals and plastics. Nevertheless, they’re both completely fulfilled by the work they do every day. Jaime is happy he’s doing work that contributes to health and well-being and Maria, in the spirit of her late mother, loves being surrounded by people everyday.
“She really was a great mom.” WHO SAID THIS. Wetness marks her eyelashes as she speaks, eyes grazing the picture of a greying woman pictured standing where Maria sold some tomatoes just moments before.
“Working with her and growing up with her. That time is a gift that will stay in my heart forever.”
The importance of familial bonds and familial support in the workplace is something both Jaime and Maria vouch for. Their earliest memories included many hours spent working at Frutas Angelita with their parents and grandparents. What began as a corner tienda at the back of el Mercat Central in 1928 has since become a flourishing business triple its original size, thanks to the Mompo siblings.
“What I treasure most about this place is that we’re a big family,” Maria says as she pauses to wave at her brother who owns the stand diagonal to Frutas Angelita.
But the bonds that Maria values most aren’t necessarily only the relationships based on blood relation. Surrounding her, are constant reminders that her workplace is three generations strong. For example, she has a 94-year old client who has bought veggies and fruits from her family for decades.
“She’s a very handsome older woman. Probably because of the fresh fruit,” Maria chuckles.
The woman had watched her grow up by her mother’s side and witnessed the transition where Maria and Jaime took over Frutas Angelitas. There are more than a handful of customers with whom Maria has had a similar kind of relationship with for many years. Also, the children of the people who sold produce to her parents run the farms that sell the fruits and vegetables to her. It’s evident that the bridges built by her parents and grandparents before her are maintained by her familiar and drawing presence.
Angela, the aforementioned 94-year old customer, agrees.
“I am single. So, Maria has always been like family to me. I share the same name as her mother so maybe that’s a sign,” she laughs.
“I will continue coming to see Maria and Jaime as long as I am physically able to, their presence is a light in my life.”
