Cooking from a farmers market

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Wangaratta Farmers Market celebrated five years. It’s fantastic. People are building the skills to use local seasonal produce and to cook the bounties that come with the seasons.  But a farmers market is more than food. It’s a social gathering. It’s entertainment.  It defines our food culture and is a reflection of our community.  Some farmers markets are even classified as tourism.

For me they are a challenge. What can I buy that will feed my family for the week.  On our budget.  How can I support our farmers, use what we grow at home and put together a tasty nutritious family menu.

Just rocking up to your local farmers market and strolling past the farmers stalls and the local producers displays is not what it’s about.  Farmers markets are not a fairground to promenade. OK there is no entry fee so you are not obligated to buy. Give it a go though. Build your local shopping skills, build relationships with farmers and producers. These skills could be useful in the future.

Salavating about what you could buy and cook and coming up with excuse after excuse about why you can’t purchase that pumpkin or head of cauliflower or rainbow chard.  Or thinking that the bacon is too expensive or the bread you can make at home for far less, or that you really don’r have the time to process 5 kg of blueberries that are on special.  Woulda shoulda coulda.  

It’s time to get into farmers market training.  It’s a long term game. You have to think about what your life will look like in a year or two when you have built your skills to those that a homesteader would be jealous of.

Righ now we have a monthly farmers martket in Wangaratta.  This makes it a little hard to build your skills, but you can suppliment from a few other sources so that when we have a bimonthly market, or let us dream, a weekly market, you’ll be the farmers markets perfet patron - trained to shop with the efficiency of a French local.

So lets set a few rules.You need time to cook the produce you buy.  Set this time aside. Acknowledge it, and stick to it. Understand that there are sacrifices.  Like that late night with your work mates on Friday nights means a late start on Saturday mornings and you are going to miss the best produce.  

The food you normally cook will take a change.  It will be driven by the produce and not the latest trends or food fads.  Just having spaghetti bolognaise every tuesday night may change. Try Rutherglen lamb ragu and house made fettuccine instead.  Or Pasta Adele with organic bacon carbonara.  

Cook the produce before it wilts in the crisper.  Do a cookup on Sunday night for the weeks lunches.  Or just the next 4 days, then go out to lunch on Friday and eat at Cafe that sources their food locally just to get an insight to how they are transforming local produce into seasonal specials.  And to realise how good your food that you’ve cooked for yourself is.

Get to know where you can save money buying at the farmers market or add value to food that is available

Splurge on some things that will last the month - vinegar or a ham hock, tomatoes from Peter Ross will last 3 weeks left out on the bench top most of the year.

Buying at the farmers market is not just paying for produce.  It is investing in a farmers future, an encouragement award and a signal to farmers that there is hope in the future.  The return you get will be in a years time when you are greated by name at each of the stalls you visit. And the excitment when you see new produce appear.  That you know how you are going to cook it, make it stretch, and add value to it. The food jigsaw pieces fall into place with the weekly menu picture forming like a hologram.  Morphing as you walk stall to stall. Possibilities forming and growing.

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