Halvah at Mahane Yehuda Market, Jerusalem, Israel

Continuuing on with our previous theme of the amazing goods at Mahaneh Yehuda Market in Jerusalem, here are a couple more pictures that capture the flavor. The first (above) is of dozens of varieties of ultra-fresh halvah, sesame candy flavored mostly with various nuts, chocolate, and sometimes lemon or rose water.

The shouks (the Hebrew word) or souks (also spelled sooks, the Arabic word) are pedestrian only areas, and so all of the produce and other goods for sale have to be brought in on handcarts. In Delhi I saw very large ones that took two men to push. Here in Jerusalem the preferred vehicle seems to be a smaller single-man cart. For some of the streets in the Old City that are steeply sloped, they have a clever adaptation – on the back is a single tire dragging from a chain. To brake the cart, the "driver" steps on that tire.

In the picture below, back at Mahaneh Yehuda, you see some enormous gourds and the harried fellow whose job it is to move them.

Ok, and I can’t resist since we talked about them recently, here’s one more picture, of Dragonfruit (aka Dragon Fruit or Pitaya) at the same market. They were less than half the price I found them for in the US, but still fairly expensive by Israeli standards.