Many trips abroad to little villages have made me an ardent fan of the farmers market. To me it represents all that's good about food producers knowing their food and being passionate about it. It's a hunting ground for home made produce,cheese from small farms,olive oil and the handmade soaps and other produce. Ofcourse cured meats are a big part of it. The emphasis is on healthy eating and nothing commercial is sold. It's all about small holdings who use the traditional ways of farming,cheese making and curing meats. There are no labels screaming vegan ,gluten free or organic. I must admit that my experiences abroad have been limited to European villages.
In India the farmers markets are mostly about fruit and vegetables,also some baskets and other home needs. I love going to them as the vegetables and fruits are fresh ,most often than not the farmer has grown it himself and it for a short durations thanks to not having the benefits of refrigerators. There are no fancy produce there just locally grown produce. In the hills ofcourse one get a differs kind of fruits but they will be misshapen but sweet and natural.
In madras I have been searching for a market but most of them are in the part of the city inhabited by the well healed (read rich and famous) and are frequented mostly by people who suffer from what I call food guilt. Most people are on diets,giving up on one food or the other because it's the current trend but they will have enough research to prove all its benefits. To someone like me (who believes in eating all foods that are local and in season and who has no fear of oils and fat and who eats anything that once walked the earth or swam in the sea) food guilt I can't relate to. Last Sunday I finally got an opportunity to go to a farmers market. The address already told me the kind of folk that would frequent it but go I did. There were many a wilting vegetable and all of them said organic and farm fresh. Kiwi fruit on the table. Since when did that become local?. Home made cakes and brownies and cookies yes very nice . Cheese from the hills was good too. Honey from farms all over India. Good but not enough information on how the bees are kept,the farms that they are reared in but the people in the stall wer friendly and knew some stuff but I suspect they are distributors and not the actual bee keepers. Some of the flavours were suspect but I did buy a natural honey. Homemade pickles ,yes I did pick a few but sad to say my mothers pickles are far far superior. The soaps all handmade and well packaged but having bought some handmade soaps from a farmer in Germany I was a bit disappointed at the total lack of fragrance. Plenty of clothes but sadly nothing suited for the heat of madras why not just stock cottons linens and mulls. There was one shop with linen but ofcourse it was way too expensive. The herbs sold were all from the hills and no one in the stall could tell me if they could be grown in madras. Ofcourse enthusiasm was very much in evidence and all of them telling me it will grow but having tried my hand at growing them and knowing full well that it won't take root,it was disappointing to note that no one in the stall who claimed to be farmers ,had actually grown them in the city and tested it out. Altogether not a bad experience but as expected the place was full of well dressed stick thin women and the stalls were mostly manned by young things with their Apple computers at the ready,well dressed,very much on diets and a passion for food guilt. We wer allowed to taste a lot of the produce so I had stuff made of mullets,rice with husks still in evidence and everyone beaming at me and telling me it is all good and healthy . Point taken but what about taste. Thank god for samples,honestly if healthy means tasteless I would prefer an early grave thank you very much. So for now I will continue to research the so called farmers markets until I find some where the farmer (even if he or she can't speak English) will be on hand to explain what it takes to have grow the produce and why he thinks his methods are good and sustainable,until then it will just be another outing for me
