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| Market in Aix-en-Provence Tuesday |
Saturday mornings in the growing season here usually find Don and I at the Crystal Spring Farmers' Market in Brunswick. As I love European Markets, it is natural that any farm market is going to rev me up. The market today was sparsely attended by the sellers, compared to the start of May when there seemed to be more farmers. Here we are still limited to green and thinnings. In Europe they had fraise du bois which are indeed different than strawberries. They also bring stuff in but it was mostly from warmer areas of Europe, like Spain and Southern Italy. Cherries and apricots abounded. Here we had lettuces and baby kale. In Italy they sell all types of things from shoes to kitchen ware, like an old fashioned tinker.
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European market in San Giovanni
(Photo credit: hansbaas71) |
Here in Maine we also have producers of artisan dairy products, meat, imported olive oil and eggs as well as bakers, and surprisingly, coffee roasters and spice merchants. The spice merchants have at least five kinds of paprika: sweet, hot, roasted, roasted hot, etc. So some are just merchants sourcing product and choosing to sell it in this way instead
A lot of love goes into food and it's nice to see the people that grow lettuce or carrots sell it as well. It connects you more to what you eat. But, it doesn't feel quite the same as a French market, which in turn doesn't feel like an Italian market. The markets feel like the place and have that place's traditions.
