Mercado Rodríguez runs along Calle Rodríguez near the San Pedro neighbourhood, a few blocks uphill from the city centre. Unlike the Witches' Market in the tourist zone, Rodríguez is a genuine neighbourhood market: most of its customers are local residents, and most of what's sold is food. The produce section is dense with things you won't recognise — dozens of potato varieties in sizes from marble to fist, purple corn, chuno (freeze-dried black potatoes that have been through a traditional Andean preservation process), packets of dried herbs for both cooking and ritual use, and fruits from the lower valleys that don't travel well and appear nowhere outside Bolivia.
The prepared food section is the reason to come hungry. Stalls toward the back sell almuerzo — the midday set lunch that most working Bolivians eat — for a few bolivianos: soup, a main course of meat with rice and potato, and a small juice. The quality varies by stall, but the best of them are better than most restaurants at twice the price. The market runs every day but is largest and most animated on weekend mornings. Arrive before eleven if you want the full produce section; by one in the afternoon the food stalls start running out.