Being people of peasant stock and temperament and being obsessed with food and eating, finding our way to farmer’s markets was a given. In the midst of walking the capitals of the United States and Canada, we found ourselves often at farmer’s markets, first accidentally and then deliberately. I claim that we have visited more markets than have most food writers.
In the frosty shadow of 8th century St. Ludgerus Church in Essen-Werden, Germany, we wandered with shivering locals and bought a kohlrabi the size of a bowling ball that fed us for three days. The Fredricton, NB market, rated among the top ten Canadian markets, was a short walk from our hostel, as was the Seaport Market in Halifax, both well-stocked with a variety of mostly organic local food, and, as the day progressed, filled to overflowing with shoppers. The St. Lawrence Public Market in Toronto stood out due to its very artistic fish head display, and the presence of local winery tasting areas. At Madison, WI, on a 26F morning, we talked with and supported several cheese-making farmers from the area. The shrimp and grits at the Baton Rouge, LA Red Stick (Baton Rouge) Market was both delicious and sourced as nearby as possible. Visiting farmers markets is not just a culinary event, it is the essence of the social and cultural life of a community.
The Forks in Winnipeg, Manitoba is now the site of a park and market place that includes a large and modern farmer’s market. This site at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, has been a gathering and trading place for at least 6,000 years. That would be several years before Safeway and Fred Meyer.
Farmer’s markets pre-date our commercial and industrial food system by thousands of years. Long before our white forebears arrived in the Lower Columbia Region, Native People gathered here to trade winter supplies they were unable to find for themselves. The Klickitat Trail, a trade route connecting eastern Washington with the the verdant and productive west end, has a several thousand year history. At trail’s end, people would gather and trade what they had for what they didn’t have. Branches of the trade routes parallel US 12 and connected with the Cowlitz Trail to the great, rich meeting junction of what we now call the Cowlitz, Coweeman, and Columbia Rivers.
Farmer’s markets connect producers with customers, providing first vegetable starts for our own gardens and then vegetables for our tables. As I write, cherries and other fruit both local and from central Washington, is availabe at our local market. A few weeks more and the wild abundance of local vegetables arrive on center stage. One of the recent additions to our local market is European style dry-cured sausages produced by The Beautiful Pig, a local sausage-maker. Goat cheese has been available in previous years and hopefully will again show up at our market. Local bread bakers, pastry vendors, egg suppliers, chocolates and a variety of crafts are regularly available.
I lament, LAMENT, the absence of seafood at our market. I know about the commercial markets and the difficulty of the catch seasons, but I think the market should do more to connect with suppliers to make seafood available. And deep in our souls we know there should be more cheese. One of the joys of the Wenatchee, Ellensburg, and Yakima markets is the presence of local cheese made from cow, sheep, and goat’s milk by area farmers. At Ellensburg a few weeks ago, I was delighted to listen to the Alpine Lakes cheese maker speak lovingly of his sheep and the cheese making process.
Farmer’s markets are also a social institution. Often the path between vendors’ stalls is blocked with groups of people being (and I have no fondness for the word) sociable. It is a place to gather and talk, to meet people not seen for months or years. And never mind the potential for gossip transmission.
By shopping at a farmer’s market, we keep the money local. Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer, poet, and agrarian theologist, argues that it is far better and more responsible to buy local food with some non-organic inputs than to purchase organic food that has traveled a thousand or more miles. At least, with local production, you have someone with a face and a name at whom you can yell.
Some years ago, at the Sacramento Farmer’s Market, I talked with an olive grower. She sold much of her crop into the nameless olive markets. But some of her crop she processed herself. She spoke with familiarity of biblical olive metaphors and her life of growing olives. She said she felt the light of God when she was among her olive trees and would often go there to pray. It was about connection for her. She felt it. I left with a bottle of her witness. A gift of God in a jar with pimentos and salt.
9 July 2013
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