TO MARKET, TO MARKET
Winter, schminter! 5 farmers markets offer fresh goods and fun all year-round
On a recent Saturday morning at Eastern Market in Detroit, busking musicians filled the air with jazz as vendors finished setting up for the day’s traffic. Shoppers streamed in, sizing up winter produce, relishes and chutneys, fresh cuts of beef and more.
Though farmers markets are usually associated with warm months and lush fruits and vegetables, Eastern Market and others like it across the country are becoming cold-weather travel destinations as they add artisanal goods, entertainment and indoor experiences like the cooking classes the Detroit market has sometimes offered during the cold months.
Some, like the Original Farmers Market in Los Angeles, the Detroit market and the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, have been in business for so long that shopping, restaurant and entertainment neighborhoods have cropped up around them, creating urban ecosystems worthy of winter getaways.
“There is now a whole destination associated with the markets themselves, and often their events are unique to the communities they serve,” said Ben Feldman, the executive director of the Farmers Market Coalition, a nonprofit organization for markets across the United States. Take, for example, the Commissioner’s Cup BBQ Cook-off and Festival at the South Carolina State Farmers Market, which happens each March in Columbia, or Milwaukee Public Market’s chili-and-beer-tasting event that kicks off annually in February.
Feldman added that while the focus of farmers markets is on what’s in season, purveyors are extending the peak of the season by creating baked goods, jams and other products from crops they’ve grown, while others are relying on greenhouses or semicircular “hoop” houses to bring more produce to market in winter. The revenue, Feldman said, is beneficial to the immediate community.
Here are five markets worth exploring — even in chilly weather.
Santa Fe Farmers Market
There are always reasons to go to Santa Fe, New Mexico: The city’s views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and its roughly 325 days of sunshine a year make it almost a lock for good weather. So the Santa Fe Farmers Market operates throughout the winter on Saturdays at the reimagined Santa Fe Railyard, where tourists once rolled in on sleeping and dining cars when the city was young.
In the winter months, said Debbie Burns, chief executive of the Santa Fe Farmers Market, shoppers can find fresh-picked arugula, bok choy, cabbage, potatoes, sprouts, microgreens, carrots, kale, mushrooms, winter squash, spinach, greenhouse tomatoes and other produce.
“It used to be that hardly any vendors produced in the winter, but now so many people have greenhouses that we have over 40 vendors,” Burns said.
The market caps all products that aren’t produce and meat (as in baked goods or crafts) at no more than 20% to keep space for what the market is meant for: fresh food.
The Original Farmers Market, Los Angeles
With its proximity to the San Joaquin Valley in central California — one of the most productive agricultural regions in the United States — Los Angeles has dozens of farmers markets, but the Original Farmers Market in the Fairfax District is an institution.
There is, of course, a wider variety of fruits and vegetables here than at markets in less accommodating climes, but beyond its winter produce, which includes avocados, sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, kumquats, clementines and persimmons, this market is also a maze of global (Brazilian, Cajun, Chinese, French, Italian, Middle Eastern and more) street-food vendors, restaurants, seafood and meat dealers, and specialty shops.
Winter also brings the market’s own Mardi Gras celebration in mid-february, with live blues and zydeco as well as Louisiana-style food.
Nashville Farmers Market
One of the oldest Tennessee markets, the Nashville Farmers Market is just a mile away from the honky-tonks on Broadway. The market’s current version, a long way from the 40-foot-long “city market” in 1802, is a 16-acre grid of stalls and one pavilion just north of the Capitol in the city’s urban core.
While most of the farmers at the Nashville Farmers Market use traditional farming techniques, some vendors, such as Josiah and Eunae Mulvihill of Morning Star Farm (soon to be Mulvabbueh Farms), just outside Clarksville, Tennessee, use “high tunnels” (greenhouses, but larger) as their main growing method, which means leafy greens like chard, spinach, kale, kohlrabi and parsley, as well as root vegetables, can be found at the Mulvihills’ stall, even in the winter.
“Our process allows for us to have fresh vegetables year-round,” Josiah Mulvihill said. His farm, he said, is committed to a sustainable “best practices” approach, which means, among other things, organic farming.
The open-air stalls operate throughout the year inside two large covered sheds that serve 150 vendors, including ranchers, artisans, dairy farmers and cheese makers as well as dealers of farm-direct products like honey, jams, jellies and chutneys. The market also lists 12 meat and seafood vendors.
Also open year-round is the Nashville market’s expansive, slightly raucous food hall, which offers several international restaurants, including Greek, Jamaican and Korean fare; cafes; a craft beer pub; and several specialty stores.
Reading Terminal Market, Philadelphia
The big blue sign with red neon letters at 12th and Arch streets is a familiar sight to Philly natives, many of whom grew up going to the busy Reading Terminal Market, a 78,000-square-foot enclosed market that hosts nearly 80 independent vendors in the former Reading Terminal train shed in the heart of Center City. It is one of the oldest markets in the country, and it’s the most visited Philadelphia tourist destination after the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, according to the market.
The market officially started doing business in 1893 at the current site, now a National Historic Landmark. The street-level market opened when the rumbling from trains then operating overhead could be felt. The Philadelphia farmers market is one of the oldest in the country, but not the oldest. That market is 80 miles west in Lancaster. The Lancaster Central Market dates to 1730.
Eastern Market, Detroit
One of the oldest and largest public markets in the United States, the Eastern Market is a central shopping hub for the city’s restaurateurs, and the site of the largest potted flower market in the United States.
This mammoth market district, just north of the city’s downtown, has 43 acres of restaurants, art galleries, entertainment, specialty shops and cafes. The market dates to 1841, when early Michiganders purchased hay and wood at the site. There are 225 vendors at the Saturday year-round market, and the Gratiot Central Meat Market, a meat-andseafood store on Gratiot Avenue, has 12 vendors who operate throughout the year from Monday through Saturday.
The market’s churchlike, arched brick entrance, through which an estimated 45,000 visitors flow each Saturday to find produce, meat, baked goods, jams, honey, cheeses, spices, plants and flowers, is unmissable.