There is a farmer's market in my neighbourhood. I'm glad there is, because it's only a very recent development. For most of the time I've lived here, we haven't had a farmer's market.
However, most of the booths aren't really farmers. They're selling baguettes or macrons or local organic vegan lunch. I prefer the few booths that are farmers - I want to be able to buy fresh produce from someone who can have an informed conversation about the quality of the produce and the realities of growing it.
The problem: the quality of produce available from the actual farmers at the farmer's market isn't as good as the quality of produce available from small neighbourhood stores like Summer's Best, or sometimes even the quality of produce available from the local Metro supermarket.
The asparagus at the market is wimpy and skinny, whereas Summer's Best and its peers have nice fat asparagus. The varieties of apples at the market are non-yummy, whereas the greengrocers and the supermarkets at least have McIntosh. And the farmer's market is never cheaper, and is often more expensive.
I'm torn. I want to support the farmer's market so there will continue to be a farmer's market right in my neighbourhood. I want to support the farmers selling fresh produce so farmers will continue to sell fresh produce at a farmer's market right in my neighbourhood. But I also want the better produce. I want to buy the better produce in order to create demand for the better produce and incentivize produce sellers to sell the stuff that I like right in my neighbourhood. Plus, of course, I want to eat the yummiest possible food.
I do get that the farmer's market might need some time and TLC to take off, and I want to give it the opportunity it needs. But where's the threshold?
8 comments:
I have a similar dilemma. I also like to buy local produce whenever possible, and the farmers' market has almost none.
#LeastImportantThing: you prefer fat asparagus? We always choose the thinnest stalks possible. Thinner is more tender, fatter more fibrous. Why do you prefer the fatter ones?
The relevant threshold is between the farmer's market concept being something farmers and consumers do to beat the system (or at least operate at the edge of the system) and it being co-opted by the system, where "farmer's market" is basically a replicable business model one can foist on a neighborhood near you, that seems to be basically a variant on the "flea market" business model that seems to consist largely of renting table space. Baked goods seems to be emerging as the low-hanging fruit of entreprenoorship. I'd be moderately wealthy if I had a nickel for every time some media outlet did a story about some laid off person who, instead of whining about their plight, emerged as a "cupcake entrepreneur." "Cupcake entrepreneur" has become about as formulaic a news story template as "autistic boy named Daniel." So that might explain baguettes and macrons (not sure what that is, maybe Canadian spelling for "macaroons?"). If there's one thing that practically sells itself, it's carbohydrates.
Even urban agriculture in Detroit is already largely co-opted. The question becomes, in the post-farmer's market age, what is the next gambit vs. Big Food? Maybe the underground dining scene?
Ha! Everything gets "discovered."
Asparagus: I find that regardless of the thickness of the stalk, they have the same amount of "asparagus yumminess" per cubic millimetre, so with the fatter ones I get more asparagus taste in my omelettes and pasta dishes. I also find that the amount of fibrousness (which I'm using to mean stringy stuff that you have to chew) is the same regardless of the thickness of the stalk, so with the thinner stalks I'm doing more chewing on stringy stuff but getting less flavour. The thicker ones are more "meaty".
"Macrons": is my very clever typo of "macarons", which I think is the French spelling for yummy colourful cookies like this. I use the French spelling to differentiate from "macaroons", which are less yummy and less colourful cookies like this. The yummy and colourful ones are often called "macaroons" in English, but I find it unhelpful to use the same word for two very distinct cookies.
Beating the system: is not a decision factor for me. I'm trying to find the balance between the food the best meets my needs right this instant and sustainable availability of the food that best meets my needs. (Which the system sometimes does very well - during the infamous apple drought of 2013, the supermarkets were able to source apples in my preferred varieties when other vendors couldn't.) There's a bigger, older, more established farmer's market near my office where I shopped all the time before I worked from home, and it met my needs perfectly. So if I support my neighbourhood farmer's market, will it grow into something that also meets my needs perfectly? Or, in doing so, am I harming the greengrocer (which currently meets my needs best right at this exact moment) and hindering their ability to meet my needs both this season and in coming years? By buying suboptimal products from the farmer's market, am I making the market look successful so it will attract more and better vendors? Or am I just creating demand for suboptimal products?
Interesting observation about asparagus.
We snap off the bottoms - which contain the stringy stuff, which I'm calling fibrous - and don't eat them.
Also, I don't cook with them (i.e. put them in pasta or omelettes - although I love asparagus in both). We only grill them. I don't know if that makes a difference.
You give me many interesting new food perspectives!
Jewish people eat macaroons - not colourful, but hugely yummy if you like coconut - during Passover.
They're a traditional Passover dessert, because they're not made with anything you don't eat during Passover... so they became traditional. I love them, especially the kind that are dipped in chocolate.
I only recently learned about the other (more colourful) macarons. They, too, are yummy. It's very helpful to remove that second o to distinguish between the two.
I've never had a grill so I've always steamed my asparagus. I never thought about it before, but I can see how that would make a difference. Thin stalks get kind of limp and pathetic when you steam them.
And we can add macaroons to the list of Things I Didn't Know Were Jewish.
To make this even sillier, in cold months when we don't grill (that is, most of the year), I also steam asaparagus, but I still choose the thinner stalks - as thin as possible. They cook super fast. You have to get them out of the steam quickly, or they do get limp and pathetic.
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