Last week, my friends and I were discussing that we did not know what persimmons were during a shopping break at the farmers markets. When I was buying some vegetables I saw persimmons there and had a chat to the stallholder about what to do with. One of the customers got really involved as well and I got a nice tutorial about eating persimmons and how to pick good ones.

I don’t know if they were really to our taste (we sort of ate it straight up) but the gift of knowledge is always delicious.

This whole post reminds me of a great book I read last year. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (by Barbara Kingsolover) is about she and her family only purchasing food that is in season. the synopsis includes the following: Inspired by the flavors and culinary arts of a local food culture, they explore farmers’ markets and diversified organic farms at home and across the country, discovering a booming movement with devotees from the Deep South to Alaska.

This year, though, I went to a full share with our CSA, and I hope to not have to go to the grocery store, but instead get what I need to fill in the blanks at the weekend markets.

We’ll see how it goes

It is disappointing… I don’t go to the farmers market to buy household items or bath supplies… I want produce that I don’t have in my garden.

I have to go some of the smaller towns that the farmers market’s are less heavily regulated to find the true farmers selling items. They also tend to be cheaper.

Also we recently had a market here that was involved in price fixing for the produce. If a particular vender didn’t want to play along and keep the price of an item within $.50 of the fair market value of the day they were not issued a permit the next year. So very shady. Not all farmers markets are equal.

I have had to educate my GF to plan what we need for the week ahead though as she used to just buy what looked good and came back with vast quantities of vegetables which we couldn’t eat! Now we make a list of the meals we want to eat and she gets to pick whatever veg she wants (so we get what’s best that week) but knows how many meals she needs to plan for. Much more effective.

This year we’ve signed up for a CSA with another of the vendors from whom I’ve purchased at the market. Cost of a whole share (for a family of 4) was only slightly more than the cost of a half-share. I decided that since most of our diet is vegetarian, the whole share might be a better size for our two-adult household; and during weeks when it’s too much we’ll have fresh produce to share with our neighbors.

You can save all you want when you go, but if you waste money by throwing it away five days later because nobody ate it, or you have to waste gas going back for a second trip, it was all pointless.

Buying the right amount is an art…

I am a farmer myself, and I’d just like to point out that modern ag practices did not invent food borne illness. It just manages to be spread faster/farther than it used to. An organic farm is as likely to have contamination problems as a conventional one, and sloppy sanitation techniques can result in problems at the manufacturers of the most “all natural” food packers/manufacturers.

My boyfriend and I have already started plotting our summer vegetable strategy. In the high season, I can access a farmers market three days a week. This also helps to keep costs of this lifestyle lower. For example, I can buy that puzzling persimmon and figure out what to do with it when I get home to my cookbooks and internet, and get back to the market to get the other items I need for the recipe in short order.

I *cannot wait* for the start of the season.

In Chicago we have tons in the summer and one that’s year round – it mostly has onions, potatoes, root veggies, sprouts, and frozen berries, which is good enough for me.

Take Care,

Mike

We go early when we want the organic, free-range eggs and grass-fed beef (one of our vendors makes THE BEST hot italian sausage I have ever eaten). We go late when we just want to see what they have, get a snack at the creperie, and maybe pick up some produce.

I nearly always over-buy as I simply cannot resist red, yellow, & purple carrots, multicolor beets, and purple potatoes. Fortunately a big pan of roasted roots is good all week.

Oh, and best: all the roots, plus shallots and garlic, are half the price of the grocery.

Can’t wait to see what shows up this summer!

I know that isn’t an option for everyone though. One of my friends who lives in Portland and belongs to a CSA told me the best thing to do is to preserve anything you aren’t going to use as soon as possible-so if your eyes are bigger than your stomach, and you get home and realize you can’t eat all of those peppers before they go bad, take some time right then to wash, clean, chop and flash freeze them to use later.

A great book I love to use is “A Busy Person’s Guide to Preserving the Harvest” which talks about the different ways to preserve all sorts of veggies-and rates each method by “best” “good” or not recommended. It also tells ways to do small batches.

Agreed with April on making friends and late deals – on weekdays I can only get there about 20 minutes before closing, at my favorite stall I can get things sometimes less than half price.

One thing I recommend is buying as much from one stand as possible. The farmers will typically give you a discount on the overall purchase.

Thanks for the Simply in Season suggestion as well.

For anybody else that lives more than half an hour away from a farmer’s market, is the drive worth it in the end?

I keep Simply in Season close at hand all year-round, and my other favorite cookbooks for dealing with what we call the “mystery vegetable/fruit of the week” from the CSA or farmer’s market are:

– A Year in the Vegetarian Kitchen by Jack Bishop (editor of Cook’s Illustrated, America’s Test Kitchen, etc.); recipes are organized by what is seasonal.
– Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything” and “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian”. There’s at least one good recipe for almost anything we can find at a farmer’s market.

I once had a roadside produce vendor gush with thank you’s when I paid her in rolls of quarters.

@JD: Give my thanks to Cathy for carrying on the More-With-Less Cookbook tradition. MWL is the most battered cookbook I own, and Simply in Season will probably catch up to it.