It’s early Saturday morning, and I am not wearing a jacket. In Madison, that is already cause for celebration. There is water in the air and sunlight is shattering into millions of tiny beams, illuminating Capitol square as I approach it. It’s a gorgeous, late-April Saturday, and I am on the tip of State Street, heading to the farmers’ market.
I have a soft spot for farmers’ markets, as well as for people who garden and farm. My grandmother, the person who taught me how to love food, kept two gardens. Every summer as a child, I would head to Denver, or sometimes Mississippi, and explore her gardens. There was a community garden, that is now an expensive condo complex, and a backyard garden where we waged war with the squirrels. But once the summer came to a close and the tomatoes turned a deep rouge under my gaze, as if they were blushing under its intensity, my grandmother and I would sit and rip into tomatoes, dressing them in vinegar. I always thought that was how food should taste, what it should be.
But the condos sprung up in the late 90s. People stopped coming to gardens and went to Safeway or Copp’s. That changed recently when an interest in wellness, in back to earth, in empowering the people who grow our food came back in style. Yet, the general trend has been an expansion of supermarkets and a decline of community gardens and farmers’ markets.
Madison is one of the few places I know that is the exception to this rule. Its farmers’ market has a 30+ year history of community and good food. I love the farmers’ market and made it a point to discover it. Let me break down my experience for you:
As I walked up State Street, the familiar streets became littered with vendors selling homemade jewelry and huge green, furry homemade piggy banks. Further up, the well-known food carts, such as the one that uses a fryer for candy, litter the street. The people here are diverse—runners from Crazylegs, parents with their infants and toddlers and a few college students (even though it’s 8 a.m. on a Saturday).
Additionally, the stalls offer foodshare, which makes me beyond happy. I know all about hunger in Madison, and it’s horrible feeling as your body eats itself out of desperation. All people deserve good and healthy food and cost should not bar them. It’s fantastic that the Madison Farmers’ Market tries to aid people in eating well.
Have you ever bitten into a vegetable so full of liquid, as if it had been rained on before it was placed into your hand? A vegetable that is warm, instead of the false frigidity of a fridge? f you haven't had this experience, please go to the Farmer's Market. Later in the summer, the produce is at its peak of freshness and you can have this experience. I had some delicious samples that I didn’t have to commute to Costco, Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods for (has anybody else gone there just for samples?).
The farmers’ market also sells homemade sauces, spreads and jams. My personal favorites I discovered were the cilantro pesto and the spicy pesto from Renaissance Farm of Spring Green, Wis. Of course, the selection of cheese is plentiful, too. Bleu Mont Dairy of Blue Mounds, Wis. sold a soft, savory garlic cheese that I highly recommend.
The pastry selection provides so many tempting options, you’ll be hard-pressed to choose what to get. Jamie’s and Son had a four berry bar, a pastry that was a raspberry party on my taste buds. The diversity of the food is amazing to see, and the market offered food that even I was not brave enough to try (like rhubarb sauce and sheep’s milk).
I interviewed a manager running Aslum’s Frozen Corn stall. Aslum’s Frozen Corn has a 37-year history at the farmer’s market—soon to be a three-generation business! Their sweet corn was some of the best I had ever tasted. Though the owner stated the business was a huge draw to Madison, another draw was friendship. The great friends they have here provides them with the sense that Madison is a community they belong in.
Here at the farmers’ market I feel part of Madison’s community. Here, all these people are demonstrating the power of food, a power that drags us out in the sun and wakes up our senses through one of life’s greatest pleasures. If you haven’t made it out to the farmers’ market yet, do your taste buds and your local farmers a favor and pay the market a visit (or several) before leaving the great city of Madison.
Email your favorite vendors and seasonal produce to Gethsemane at herron-coward@wisc.edu and perhaps you folks can meet for some free samples of cheese this Saturday.
