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Subscriber Ruth Katcher Profiles Some More Local Food Scenes Out West
Ruth Katcher is a Local Food Forum subscriber in Brooklyn, New York, and a compatriot in supporting a better food system. The longtime manager of a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, she visited The Lincoln Park Farmers Market with me during her recent Chicago visit.
Ruth and her husband proceeded out West for sight-seeing, a family visit and some local food adventures. In a follow-up to her essay about the farmers market in tiny Custer, South Dakota, Ruth writes about shopping local in Montrose, Colorado — with a little twist.
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A Tale of Two Markets
Our family trip took us to Montrose, Colorado, and we strolled downtown to the Saturday farmers market on the corner of Main St. and Uncompahgre.
Montrose is the second largest city in western Colorado, with a population of 20,000. The market's size reflects this, with a variety of stands selling farm produce as well as baked, canned and pickled goods and artisanal products.
We saw beautiful swiss chard, several different types of potatoes, heirloom tomatoes, and locally-grown peaches and cantaloupe. A friend in the northeast Colorado city of Loveland told me they drive every year to Montrose for the peaches, melons, and corn. Bunches of dried lavender perfumed the air.
Traffic was brisk, though prices were much higher than I expected, on a par with farmers markets in New York City or Chicago: $5 or $6/pound for tomatoes, $4 for a small bundle of cooking greens. In some cases, like the $12 loaf of sourdough, they were 50 percent over what I'd pay in a New York farmers market.
I was glad to see the market has a generous plan for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients. Still, tempted as we were by the assortment of produce, we just didn't want to pay these prices.
Fortunately we knew of another option, Mattics farm stand just a few blocks away. There were no baked goods, but the stand carried at least four varieties of watermelon, early pears and apples. There were top-quality peaches for eating and a bin of second quality for canning.
Heavy rains had shut down cantaloupe production, but the farmer had other melons for us to try. In addition to jalapeño peppers, we were tempted by shishito, Anaheim, and poblano peppers and purple and green bell peppers.
No heirloom tomatoes, but first-rate field tomatoes, Roma, and red and purple cherry tomatoes. We also found fresh garlic, onions, eggplant, tomatillos, cucumbers, summer squash, kale, freeze-dried corn, dried beans, and locally produced honey, syrups, and jellies. Oh, and the corn — so sweet and much bigger ears than I've ever seen in my farmers market back in New York.
As for the prices? In several cases they were half of what we would have paid in the town farmers market. We loaded up and went back two days later for more.
The farmer told us his father had bought the farm in 1961. He's tried CSA in the past but found there wasn't much interest in a city with plentiful farmstands. He said the town farmers market involved too much preparation. There was a steady flow of customers through the stand, some drawn by canning quantities of peaches, tomatoes and tomatillos, all stopping for a chat.
The Montrose farmers market is well-funded, unsurprising in a city that's eager to establish itself as business and family friendly. I enjoyed strolling through it and suspect that if I lived here, I'd be sharing Irish soda bread and catching up with friends at the picnic tables.
But I'd still do my shopping at Mattics farmstand, where I could buy a week's worth of fresh, seasonal fruit and vegetables for about what members of my CSA pay, while welcoming the seasonal change in ripe produce, accepting samples of yellow watermelon and advice about what to do with the dried corn.
In Montrose, in the heart of farm country, there's room for both.
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