Weekly Jaunts to the Farmers’ Market

Every Friday morning, my neighbour and I shop at our local farmers’ market.

It takes me back to my childhood when my mother and I went to the huge market to buy fresh produce, meat and fish. The grocery was for staples like rice and flour. We knew the produce was pulled from the soil or picked the day before or early that morning.  I loved to see the displays: piles of carrots, okras, beets, beans, bunches of scallions, thyme and marjoram, hot peppers, limes, golden apples, bananas, plantains, huge avocados, breadfruit, yams, eddoes, cassava, oh I could go on.

Brussels Sprouts

Farmers’ markets use this simple way of displaying our food. No well-scrubbed produce wrapped in plastic with all outer leaves and roots trimmed. These displays are pleasing to the eye and remind us of what our food really looks like.

If I’m going to shop at the farmers’ market, I want real farmers not the wannabes who show up with onions in bags declaring, Product of the U.S.A. or with cucumbers wrapped tightly in plastic or with stickers on the peppers or with products out of season locally. These are food terminal farmers and I bypass them. Plus anyone who puts soft-skinned fruit, heavier than berries, in those slotted plastic containers that damage the fruit unlucky to be on the bottom, need to attend farming 101 on how to handle delicate fruit.  I want the real thing, otherwise I might as well go the supermarket.

Carrots from Farmers' Market

Who can resist perfectly formed nectarines or blushing peaches or crisp pears? The tomatoes, oh the tomatoes that taste as tomatoes should.  Green beans,broccoli and brussels sprouts. Carrots, beets and potatoes covered in dirt. Jams and jellies that remind you of homemade. The honey man.  Corn that I will cook in their husks.  Lettuces of all types with bits of dirt still clinging to the leaves and celery, cabbage with their outer leaves. The pie lady where a plum donut was my treat, the melon stall where I tasted and bought my first yellow watermelon. The varieties of squash and pumpkins not found in stores, the deli couple from whom I bought sausages, the poultry/egg man.  Recently, it`s been cider I can`t go home without and the market was the first place I ever saw a fresh hazelnut (looks like an interesting insect); the things we learn.

I also love to see buyers lugging bushel baskets and big bags of tomatoes and imaging the lovely sauces being made.  Note to self: Next year, start making friends in the market.

It’s interesting how much money I spend at the market on a weekly basis that I would never spend in the store. Can’t resist all that glorious freshness. If you think about it, the farmers` market is not the place for an empty-nester, single lady to shop but I buy anyway and make the most of my purchases. My girls appreciate the mid-week meals they can take to their homes.

Inspired by the fresh produce in the market, I did something I`ve not done in years, I canned or maybe nowadays it`s jarred. I made pickles (cukes & mushrooms), two types of plum jam (golden and purple) and will be making hot pepper jelly in a day or so.  Of course, one jar of each item is best put aside for testing purposes.

Only two more weeks left but I have my jars of deliciousness to tide me over to spring, if they last that long, 

Will keep you posted.