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note to self
Sep. 28th, 2019 12:42 pmvia https://ift.tt/2mqvo04
gotta write a post about farmer’s markets and finding local food. as it happens i don’t know a ton about telling a good farmer’s market apart from a bad one.
brainstorming, I’d appreciate any insight, but mostly this is me rambling about what I think I know.
i assume the key is “producer-only” markets, right? like, there are “””’”farmer’s markets”””””” filled with just… grocery store wholesalers and resellers and all kinds of stuff like that, and people go there for bargains and so on, but those aren’t really going to do much to actually connect you to your sources of food or give you much insight into the local food scene. They might, but then, I don’t see how buying oranges off the back of the same truck that sells them to the grocery store is really helping you that much. Like, it’s a good deal probably, but it’s not exactly changing the food system.
so I have a hunch that’s the difference, but IDK.
I have to be honest, I’ve never been great at going to a farmer’s market and actually assembling anything approaching a meal. I’d only ever shopped at them for like, funsies, until I started working at the farm. I’ve only attended a few around Buffalo, all of which were the kind of place where there’s just a few tents and they’ve got like… expensive attractive veggies, or like, specialty meats. and it’s hard to build any kind of food plan around that.
But my mom’s been going to the Troy Farmer’s Market for at least fifteen years now, pretty faithfully; I’d say, every single week she’s in town for at least a decade. And she goes with a plan, has her regular order at various vendors, has a routine, knows which order to shop in and when to send Dad back to the car with the cold stuff etc., and has built it all around knowing she’s got a CSA box.
So she’s got a certain amount of veggies that she’s starting with, and then she knows, for example, her CSA never has parsnips, so she’ll get those from the guy who has them, and she’s likely to get a particular vegetable in her share and she’ll want fish to go with that so she’ll stop by the fishmonger, she’ll want bread and there are three bread vendors and she splits her patronage between the three, she likes sprouts in her salad and the CSA doesn’t do that and the one sprouts guy’s an antivaxxer so she won’t buy from him but fortunately the others are sensible folk so she can safely go there and they’re right by the coffee place so she’ll get coffee then too, and she’ll likely make a pizza so she’ll go see what cheese the one cheese lady’s got, and if they’re out of mozzarella she’ll try the other cheese person, and there are two fruit booths that’ll have apricots so she’ll try the friendlier one first, and of course you get the milk last because the full glass jars are heavier than the empty ones, and the yogurt place is on the way out. She has certain people she talks to, certain places to be Seen, it’s all very neighborly, and it means she only needs the grocery store once a month for toothpaste, if even that.
But Troy’s a big market– 10-15,000 visitors a week all year, no hiatus in the winter.
I don’t know what you do if your local farmer’s market is teeny. How much time can you spend cobbling together a grocery run? How many places do you drive yourself to?
But we have a local co-op, out here in Buffalo, with more than one location, and it has a lot of those local foods on its shelves. That seems more efficient. It looks like the closest indie dairy suppliers are in Ithaca, which isn’t real close; I’m surprised nobody’s closer to the city, but maybe I just haven’t found them yet. Anyway– farmer’s markets don’t have to be the whole story, but gosh, they’re a good start and handy when they’re good.
gotta write a post about farmer’s markets and finding local food. as it happens i don’t know a ton about telling a good farmer’s market apart from a bad one.
brainstorming, I’d appreciate any insight, but mostly this is me rambling about what I think I know.
i assume the key is “producer-only” markets, right? like, there are “””’”farmer’s markets”””””” filled with just… grocery store wholesalers and resellers and all kinds of stuff like that, and people go there for bargains and so on, but those aren’t really going to do much to actually connect you to your sources of food or give you much insight into the local food scene. They might, but then, I don’t see how buying oranges off the back of the same truck that sells them to the grocery store is really helping you that much. Like, it’s a good deal probably, but it’s not exactly changing the food system.
so I have a hunch that’s the difference, but IDK.
I have to be honest, I’ve never been great at going to a farmer’s market and actually assembling anything approaching a meal. I’d only ever shopped at them for like, funsies, until I started working at the farm. I’ve only attended a few around Buffalo, all of which were the kind of place where there’s just a few tents and they’ve got like… expensive attractive veggies, or like, specialty meats. and it’s hard to build any kind of food plan around that.
But my mom’s been going to the Troy Farmer’s Market for at least fifteen years now, pretty faithfully; I’d say, every single week she’s in town for at least a decade. And she goes with a plan, has her regular order at various vendors, has a routine, knows which order to shop in and when to send Dad back to the car with the cold stuff etc., and has built it all around knowing she’s got a CSA box.
So she’s got a certain amount of veggies that she’s starting with, and then she knows, for example, her CSA never has parsnips, so she’ll get those from the guy who has them, and she’s likely to get a particular vegetable in her share and she’ll want fish to go with that so she’ll stop by the fishmonger, she’ll want bread and there are three bread vendors and she splits her patronage between the three, she likes sprouts in her salad and the CSA doesn’t do that and the one sprouts guy’s an antivaxxer so she won’t buy from him but fortunately the others are sensible folk so she can safely go there and they’re right by the coffee place so she’ll get coffee then too, and she’ll likely make a pizza so she’ll go see what cheese the one cheese lady’s got, and if they’re out of mozzarella she’ll try the other cheese person, and there are two fruit booths that’ll have apricots so she’ll try the friendlier one first, and of course you get the milk last because the full glass jars are heavier than the empty ones, and the yogurt place is on the way out. She has certain people she talks to, certain places to be Seen, it’s all very neighborly, and it means she only needs the grocery store once a month for toothpaste, if even that.
But Troy’s a big market– 10-15,000 visitors a week all year, no hiatus in the winter.
I don’t know what you do if your local farmer’s market is teeny. How much time can you spend cobbling together a grocery run? How many places do you drive yourself to?
But we have a local co-op, out here in Buffalo, with more than one location, and it has a lot of those local foods on its shelves. That seems more efficient. It looks like the closest indie dairy suppliers are in Ithaca, which isn’t real close; I’m surprised nobody’s closer to the city, but maybe I just haven’t found them yet. Anyway– farmer’s markets don’t have to be the whole story, but gosh, they’re a good start and handy when they’re good.
