MORE IN GREENMARKET

When you shop at a greenmarket, you’re buying your food directly from the folks who grew it. It doesn’t get much fresher than that. In fact, greenmarkets are your single greatest source for seasonal, locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables, grass-fed meat and dairy products, fresh fish, and a whole array of homegrown gourmet goodies, from artisanal breads and cheeses to homemade jams and salsas, and even organic wines. Many also give local nurseries the opportunity to sell vegetable seedlings, herbs, flats of annuals to fill your window boxes, and all kinds of other plants.

History:

According to the USDA, in the ten years following 1994, the number of greenmarkets in America more than doubled, rising from 1,755 to 3,706 (a whopping 111% increase).

Some of that increase is due in part to Chez Panisse chef and farmers’ market enthusiast Alice Waters, one of the most visible proponents of the greenmarket movement. Waters was one of the first chefs to emphasize the importance of eating seasonally and relying on local produce. Chez Panisse, opened in 1971 in Berkeley, Calif., offered diners the “immediacy and excitement of vegetables just out of the garden, fruit right off the branch, and fish straight out of the sea.” Across the country, the Greenmarket movement began with the opening of New York City’s Union Square Greenmarket, launched in 1975 to meet the growing demand for farm fresh, sustainably grown produce that Waters and a handful of fellow foodies helped to create. Farmers’ markets soon sprung up in other cities, offering shoppers a dazzling array of produce unlike anything available on their supermarket shelves.

Context:

Greenmarkets are often perceived to cater to the rich, or at least those who will part with good money for truffles. But while chefs from the finest restaurants often frequent the farmers’ market stalls in search of the raw ingredients for that evening’s entrees, there’s nothing elite about greenmarkets. Most greenmarkets accept food stamps, and without a middleman demanding a cut of the profits, the prices for produce are often the same or better than those in conventional supermarkets. To learn more about greenmarkets and locate the ones nearest you, visit Local Harvest's website and the USDA’s farmers’ market website.

External Links:

Wikipedia - Greenmarket

Local Harvest

Farmers' Market Growth

Alice Waters’ website

Further Reading:

Michael Ableman’s Fields of Plenty: A Farmer's Journey in Search of Real Food and the People Who Grow It

Janet Kessel Fletcher’s Fresh from the Farmers' Market: Year-Round Recipes for the Pick of the Crop