Steph and I went to the Amsterdam Pure Markt (website in Dutch) today. I have only recently ever heard of it, it’s all the way on the other side of the city from us and it’s only held once a month, so it’s not going to be a regular thing for us to do. A number of stands had home made looking sausages hanging up like this one:
The stated goals of the market organizers are:
- Delicious Eating and Drinking
- In Season and Local Products
- Handmade with Quality
- Creativity
- Environmentally Sustainable
- Healthy
There were several cheese stands, like this one that appeared to be selling cheese from their own farm.
Lots of food was available, mostly in the form of small inexpensive snacks. Some of the stands selling delicatessen products were happy to sell them on a paper plate with a plastic fork for no extra cost.
A local microbrewery was selling ‘samples’ of their beer for €1 per glass. Wine was also available per glass, together with many other non-alcoholic drinks. Most of the stands seemed to be offering free samples of their products.
This board is offering crepes, sweet on top and savory on the bottom. It says the savory ones are made with buckwheat flour.
While a lot of the products were very regional, there were also a number of farmers who came from farther away, like this Italian looking guy selling organic Sicilian olive oil for €10 per wine bottle full.
This market may be the only place you will ever see Dutch wine for sale, like this stand below:
This stand sold smoked garlic and related products:
This stand wasn’t clearly labelled, so I can’t say anything about it for sure, but it appeared to be one of a number of stands that were selling products that came from a single farm or farming cooperative. In this case what they were selling looked like it came from Spain:
This stand was selling home made mustard products (and by the looks of it pickles too):
For 2009 this market is only the last Sunday of each month, up to and including October, from 11:00-18:00 (11am to 6pm). It’s not a difficult walk from the Amstel train station in Amsterdam, but taking bus 15 for a few stops, or maybe a taxi, is probably a little easier. Tram 9 from Amsterdam Centraal Station is also a good choice. It’s just about in the dead center of Park Frankendael, and if you walk be sure to have a good map with you as the streets are a little complicated in that area. Try using Google Maps to search on ‘Pure Markt Amsterdam Netherlands’.
If you’re a tourist coming to Amsterdam, looking for local food products, I think it’s a great place to come. For some reason their website is not in English, in fact they don’t seem to be doing a lot of promotion at all, so it’s probably mostly unknown to most tourists. It wasn’t very crowded like our local food market can be, and the surrounding park can be a nice place to spend the rest of the day after a visit to the market.
Great post! What is Dutch wine like?
It’s funny, I just posted some photos from my local market this morning. Looking at your photos of this market, and your other market, it’s neat how the feeling is the same even an ocean away. I feel like I’d be at home in any farmers’ market anywhere in the world!
Hi Amelia,
It’s funny how we made such similar post at the same time!
Honestly, I haven’t tasted Dutch wine before. This stand wasn’t offering samples either, that I noticed. I’ve heard it’s okay, but not very interesting. I suspect they need to use a lot of pesticides and other chemicals to get wine grapes to grow here, and the wine is not labelled organic.
Right now the climate in Holland is too cold and wet for good wine, but they think in a few decades if global warming sets in, Holland could be the new major wine region… It’s already happening in France that vineyards are creeping north as the climate warms.
The vineyard that makes this wine isn’t far from Amsterdam.
It looks really good Pat! Maybe I should take a trip next time it’s on. I’ve been to the vineyard that produces that wine as it was near where I used to live. I read an article on English wines the other day, but then they have an odd microclimate in Cornwall that allows for grape growing.