During the summer, Minneapolis' Farmer's Market is the best spot for fresh produce. The market opens early in the morning and vendors usually pack up after noon. Early in the morning, there are busy crowds of people walking from vendor to vendor examining fresh produce, in the search for the cheapest prices. As the chilly summer breeze blows, there is constant chatter of people discussing the fresh produce and prices. In the distance, there is a man sitting off to the side, playing a violin with the case open, hoping to earn some cash.
There are rows and rows of beautifully colored fruits and vegetables, freshly picked and locally grown. Prices often range from $1-$10 and amounts of fresh produce from a little basket to large bushels. Customers often bargain prices and receive more produce for less when they buy in bulk. Often times when I go with my mother, our arms are full, plastic bags filled with produce, swinging back and forth as we walk.
Despite the Farmer's Market being a great source of fresh produce, the hours the vendors are present along with the congested area right outside of downtown Minneapolis. There is limited parking and customers are required to walk a lot and carry all the produce they buy, often put into separate plastic bags, which can get heavy quickly. Moreover the mentality of buying fresh produce and in bulk for a cheaper price includes cooking fresh meals at home. Although parking is limited, almost all customers drive to the Farmer's Market, spending about 5-10 minutes looking for a parking spot or waiting for other customers to leave.
The Farmer's Market is catered towards middle-class families who can access the Farmer's Market in the hours it is open with the best fresh produce, a car to get to the market along with easily transporting the customer and their goods they buy, the mentality of buying fresh produce in bulk, and privilege in having time to cook these fresh produce.
The Farmer's Market also depicts the produce available as locally grown and healthy. However, the community is not informed on how these local families grow the produce and what chemicals may have been used in the process of growing the produce. Customers often like to depict family owned farms as producing the freshest and most high quality goods, however what if it actually looked very similar to large corporations who specialize in mass production who are often portrayed as the "bad guys" and not so "organic". Labels are important but how much worth can we put into labels and "word of the mouth". If a vendor said they picked the vegetables yesterday, customers wouldn't know for sure if they did, but would trust the vendor isn't lying to them. Customers would have to trust the vendor's "words of the mouth". There are also no refunds or receipts available at Farmer's Markets, what if someone consumed some goods and became sick? What do the vendors go through to be vendors, are their produce regulated?
Nice alternative view on farmers markets because as you said many people interpret these places to have the healthiest and most organic foods despite not knowing their true origin. Sadly this is true of most things ,especially food, unless you really do your research. My sister worked throughout highschool at a fruit and vegetable stand where the owner claimed to grow everything, but in actuality he would buy it at another market and resell it for a profit (a terrible business model) so people were not getting what they were paying for. Traps like these could be avoided if one were to heavily research before every purchase they made, but this simply isn't practical leading to persons like food producers to get away with questionable practices. Because of impracticality you have to value someone's "word of mouth" and go with what you think creates the truest reality, and not just the most convenient.
ReplyDeleteI love the markeT (of course), but this gets me thinking about the labor involved in cooking-from-fresh. All those Hmong families do it, of course. But how about hte guys with 3 jobs and high rent? Can they? Why not?
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