When you want to eat locally grown food, the best place to go is your local farmers market. This is a market where many farmers gather to sell their crops.
There’s nothing quite like the flavors you find when you grow your own food. Tomatoes grown in your garden are always better than those from the store. If you want more of these flavors in your regular dishes, you’ll want to learn more about how to create a farm-to-table grocery habit. One of the best ways to do this is by visiting your local farmers market.
Here are a few farmers market shopping tips to create the best farm-to-table recipes.
Know your seasons
Why are some fruits and vegetables available year-round while others have seasons? This has to do with the demand and availability of certain foods. Understanding which fruits and vegetables are produced and harvested during each season can help you build the right recipes. You want to have a list of recipes that are right for each season, ensuring you get to enjoy the right foods at the right time of year and in your region.
Bring small change
Most farmers market vendors take cash and might not have a card reader to process your debit or credit card payments. It’s important to bring some small change with you. When you have exact change or something close to it, you’ll be more of a welcome site at the market. This can go a long way to creating good relationships and building your farm-to-table habits. If you make things easier on the vendors, they will often help you out as well.
Go early
Many farmers markets open early, and that’s when you want to be there shopping. This is a good way to avoid crowds and make sure the vendors pay attention to you and your purchases. The best way to take advantage of the best selection of food is to go early and check out the fruits and vegetables as they are being put out. The best items tend to go first, and many limited items might sell out before the end of the day. Go early and get ahead of the crowd.
Be ready to pivot
You might plan your recipes and know what you want to buy based on the season, but that doesn’t mean you won’t find something unique or special and unexpected at the market. A great way to enjoy farm-to-table shopping is to be open to change and understand you might find something new that you want to try and enjoy at home. Leave some wiggle room in your planning for these items and enjoy something unique on your table.
Buy large quantities
You’ll get the best deals at farmers markets when you buy in bulk. This means you’ll have some fresh and wonderful produce to take home along with a much better price because you bought a large quantity. If you’re worried about produce spoiling or going bad, learn about canning and make food that can be preserved and used during other seasons. Other methods of preserving food longer are freezing and drying, which might be some great ways to enjoy current seasonal flavors at other times of the year.
Whole foods are wonderful
Most of the food you’ll find at the farmers market has only recently been plucked from the soil. You will find root vegetables with dirt on them, peas still in the husks, and corn with the stalk still attached. This means these foods are minimally processed and ideal for your farm-to-table eating methods. This also means you can enjoy some of the items that grocery stores often remove, like carrot tops and beet greens, which are good for some recipes. With these whole foods, you’ll learn more about cooking and how to prepare items that others won’t find at the grocery store.
Go late
If you can’t make it to the farmers market early, the next best time is to go later in the day. Although the selection of produce will likely have been picked through by then, items remaining in that last hour will often be discounted, which gives you a much better price than you would have paid early in the day. Venders don’t want to take produce home and will likely sell the last items at heavy discounts, making this a good time to save a few bucks.
Note: Some markets have rules against end-of-the-day discounts.
Visit your local farmers market when you want to enjoy some farm-to-table recipes and experience some wonderfully fresh food that is much better than what you’ll find at the grocery store.
