About every other Saturday, M. and I drive to the market in Basse-Terre. While the actual market is inside a semi-enclosed building, vendors pour out of the building and invade the esplanade facing the Caribbean Sea. We can easily buy our vegetables at Carrefour, but this is the only place where we can buy guavas (goyave), passion fruits (fruit de la passion, or maracudja), sugar apples (pomme cannelle), pineapples (ananas), etc. We've been buying from one stand since the beginning and now we're greeted warmly as regulars. We're asked how we're doing (and we do the same), and now its "What would I like, cherie." We always leave with an extra...an extra cucumber, an extra star fruit (carambole), a pair of bananas...
Otherwise, the market is the best place to buy home-made punch. Its impossible to miss Marcellia's stand. With tables draped in plastic madras (the way we like it), and more than 100 bottles of punch, groups of tourists seem to constantly surround the stand. Understandable, as Marcellia gives out free tastes of as many different bottles you like. Marcellia is the toast of photo-hungry vacationers, since she comes dressed in traditional creole clothing and happily poses for photos.
I don't know if she's mentioned in English guides, but she has an entry in the last Michelin guide:
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