No pictures for this post unfortunately, but on my recent trip I visited two farmers markets in Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon. Even though these are in different states, they are actually about a 20 minute drive from each other, just over the state line.
Before I went on my trip I searched the Internet for information, preferably reviews, of area farmers markets and strangely didn’t come up with much. Is it just that no one thinks about doing a review for something like that? Every farmers market I’ve ever been to has been different and had it’s own atmosphere. I really think some are a lot better than others, usually for different reasons, and I think it’s helpful to know which are the best to visit.
Both markets were not what I would think of as very crowded. I think there are probably a lot of people living in the area who haven’t discovered them yet, which is a real shame.
Vancouver, WA
Of the two markets, this was probably my favorite. I went on Saturday, which probably didn’t make much difference, but they are only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
I liked this market because it was very simple and straight forward. The prices seemed good, as was the quality of most of the vegetables. The day I went I couldn’t find any interesting cheese to buy*. I was also looking for some mushrooms, but the one stand that sold them didn’t have very nice looking stock.
One of the best stands was Martinez Family Farm, a Mexican family in the back of the market. Not only did they have nice vegetables, but they also sold some cooked snacks. Their deep fried vegetables were very good. If you go to the market, make sure to look for this stand.
This market was much smaller than the Portland one, and much plainer. I think if you go to this market and are not used to farmers markets, you might find it a bit intimidating. Supermarkets for example spend a lot of time making their produce look tidy and clean. Most of the stands at this market didn’t invest a lot of time in this, which could lead the shopper to think there was a problem with the quality. I can assure you, this was not the case. For example, there were a few stands selling mostly non-food items, that for some reason also had a big basket of green beans. I didn’t see any reason why anyone would not want to buy the green beans if they were interested in them.
Many of the stands at this market had signs up encouraging you to taste samples from some of their bins, for example the cherries or other small fruits. Other stands had cut up fruits to sample.
Portland, OR
This was also a great market. I went to the Saturday market, on the Portland State University campus. In this case, I can imagine the different markets in different locations would be different. In the case of this market, students were very visibly present, both buying and selling.
In this market, while there was lots to buy at reasonable prices, you need to keep a closer eye on the price of what you buy. I bought a few startling expensive, but ordinary looking items, before I realized this. In particular, some of the stands were run by students who weren’t farmers, and seemed to have their own motivations for being there, and were selling at their own prices.
This market had a quad area in the middle with live music. A few stands sold prepared food, so it was possible to sit down for a nice lunch of market food.
The website boasts as many at 250 stands, and while there were probably less than 200 stands on the day I was there, there was still a lot.
I bought some nice cheese there. There were also a number of stands selling more exotic and speciality vegetables. There was quite a lot of meat to be had, as well as some non food items.
I think this is a nice market to go to if you are looking for a fun afternoon out, but the Vancouver one was better if you wanted to get down to the business of buying vegetables.
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*[update]: After writing and publishing this I got an email from Dee Creek Farm, who wanted to know why I didn’t see their stand at the Vancouver market on the day I was looking for cheese. That’s a good question, and I don’t know. In addition, since they also have a stand at the Portland market, I think they are the ones I bought cheese from the following week and thought was very good.
If you’re at the Vancouver or Portland markets and want some cheese, be sure to look for them!
