The Farmers Market Shopping: A Complete Guide for Who Wants to Eat Well and Save the Money

There is a thing that I say always to my friends, to my neighbours, also to the strangers who ask me where I do the shopping: go to the market of the farmers. Not the supermarket with the cold lights and the plastic wrapping. No. The market where the man with the dirty hands gives you the tomato that he has picked this morning at the five o’clock. This is the real food. This is the real life.

And I explain to you here, with all the patience of the world, how to do the shopping at the farmers market in the way correct, without to waste the money and without to come home with the basket half empty. Because, believe to me, it is not so simple as it seems the first time.

Why the Market of the Farmers Is a Different World

When you enter in a supermarket, you see the same strawberry in January and in July. The same pepper, perfect and shiny, all the year. But this is not the nature. The nature has her seasons, her rhythms, her logic.

At the farmers market, instead, you find only what the earth gives in that moment. In September, for example, you find the beautiful pumpkins, the grapes heavy with the juice, the last peppers of the summer, the figs that are so sweet they almost melt in the hand. In March, you find the first asparagus, the artichokes, the young peas.

The difference is not only in the taste, which is enormous. The difference is also in the price, because the product of the season costs less to grow. And the difference is in the health, because a vegetable that has travelled two thousand kilometres in a refrigerated truck is not the same thing as a vegetable that has travelled five kilometres in the back of a small van.

The Best Moment to Go: This Is Important, Listen to Me

Here is the thing that many people get wrong. They go at the ten, at the eleven, when the sun is already high and the best things are gone. Or they go at the last moment, when the vendors want to close and everything is a little tired, a little sad.

The ideal hour, I say to you from twenty years of experience, is between the seven and the half past eight in the morning. Why? For three reasons very simple:

• The choice is complete. All the crates are full, all the products are fresh and arranged with care.
• The vendors have the time to talk. They tell you how to cook the thing, when to eat it, how to conserve it. This is a richness that no supermarket gives you.
• The temperature is still cool. The leaves are not wilted, the berries are firm, the cheese is not sweating.

If you cannot go so early, the second good moment is the last half hour before the closing. Here the prices go down, because the farmer prefers to sell for less than to bring back the merchandise. But the choice is reduced, this I must say with honesty.

How to Choose the Products: The Eyes, the Hands, the Nose

At the market you must use all the senses. Not only the eyes. I explain to you with some examples practical:

The tomatoes: they must be heavy for their dimension. If you take one in the hand and it feels light, it is full of water and without taste. The smell near the stem must be green, strong, a little wild.

The eggs: if the farmer sells them directly, ask when the hens have made them. The shell must be clean but not washed with the chemicals. A little dirt is the sign of the authenticity.

The bread of the local baker: press it lightly with the finger. If it returns to the form, it is good. If it stays pressed, it is too old or made with too much yeast.

The cheese: ask to taste. Always. No vendor serious will say no to you. If he says no, you turn and you go to the next one.

Do not be shy. Ask the questions. „Is this from your field?” „When have you picked it?” „How do you suggest to cook it?” The farmers love to talk about their work. It is their pride.

The Question of the Sugars and the Balance of the Body

Now, I want to speak of a thing that touches many families, also mine. At the market you see all these beautiful fruits — the grapes, the figs, the peaches, the cherries — and you think: „How marvellous, I eat a little of everything.” And this is a good thing, the fruit is a gift of the earth.

But there are people — my mother, for example, and also some friends of mine — who must pay attention to the level of the sugar in the blood. The glucose, they call it. When you eat the sweet things, the sugar goes up in the blood, and the body must work to bring it down. For who has a little difficulty with this mechanism, also a beautiful plate of grapes can create a small problem.

My mother, after she has changed her alimentation and has started to buy more vegetables and less refined things at the market, her doctor has suggested also a natural support. She has found Glycorium, which is a supplement thought for who wants to maintain the levels of the glucose in a range healthy. Nothing of miraculous, for clarity — it is a support, not a medicine. But she takes it with constancy and she says that she feels more steady during the day, without those sudden drops of energy after the meal.

If you are curious, the information she has read was on glycorium.biz where they explain the composition in a way simple. I tell you this not because someone has asked me, but because I have seen my mother more serene, and this for me is the only thing that counts. Naturally, speak always first with your doctor, because every body is a story to itself.

The Practical List: What to Bring and How to Organise

To do the shopping at the market well, you must be a little prepared. Not too much, but a little yes. Here is what I recommend:

The Mistakes to Avoid: I Have Made Them All, So You Do Not Must

In twenty years, I have made every possible error. I tell you the most common, so you save yourself the embarrassment:

• Do not buy everything at the first stall. Walk all the market first. Look. Compare the prices. Then you return to buy.
• Do not squeeze the fruit with all the hand. The vendors become angry, and with reason. Look, smell, ask. But treat the merchandise with respect.
• Do not go with the hunger. If you are hungry, you buy too much bread, too many olives, too many things that you eat standing there and then you have no space in the basket for the dinner.
• Do not think that „organic” written on a paper means automatically better. Ask instead how the farmer works. Does he use treatments? How does he fight the insects? The honest farmer explains without problems.

A Final Word, From the Heart

The farmers market is not only a place where you buy the food. It is a place where you meet the people, where you touch the earth with the eyes, where you understand that behind every carrot there is a man or a woman who has woken before the sun.

When I go on the Saturday morning with my basket, I greet the man of the oil, I ask the woman of the herbs if her basil is good this week, I let the old man of the cheese tell me the story of his goats for the tenth time. And I come home with the basket full, yes, but also with the spirit full.

Go to the market. Wake up early. Talk with the people. Smell the bread. Touch the tomatoes. Choose the fruit of the season and eat it with gratitude. And if the body asks for a little help to manage the sugars, to find the information, to make a choice conscious — but always with the doctor at your side.

This is the shopping. This is the life. Simple, true, with the hands dirty and the heart content.