If you ask me, few things are better than getting up on the weekend to go visit a good market. When I was a little kid and lived in Seattle it was the Pikes Place Market for fresh fruit, vegetables and seafood, or the flea market for just about anything else you could imagine. Now that I’m in college it can be hard to justify the time taken to get up on a Saturday morning to go to a market just to wind up blowing all of my cash for the week on, you guessed it, food, but it’s hard not to miss the sights, sounds, smells and tastes that come from the awesome collaboration of a weekend market. That was until I finally visited the Charleston Farmers Market last weekend with my roommate and one of her friends who was, luckily, a fellow foodie.
It’s taken me almost three years in Charleston to get to the market, and now I’ll be spending the rest of the semester making up for lost time. Just like most farmers markets, there’s a good mix of produce stands and artisan crafts, including some gorgeous pieces of woodworking. What got me after just one visit was the food stands. I had heard great things about the crepe stand, and my roommate tried one of those after debating between that or waffles on a stick. I wound up with an oyster po’boy from Cafe Tippeneaux, a regular find at the market and a grapefruit and elderflower soda from Cannonborough Beverage Company for lunch. One sip of that soda, and I was hooked. I bought a small cup of soda but will be going back next week for a growler...I’ll worry about fitting it in the fridge later, this stuff is worth it! For a treat later on in the week I picked up some pate from Meat House Butcher Shop, which I can’t wait to try with some good bread. There were even about four different stands for cold-pressed juices so who knows, I may be trying one of those soon too.
The reason I loved the market wasn’t just because everything I tried there tasted good, but because the things there were local and unique. Cannonborough Beverage Company was born right on the peninsula, and instead of sodas with artificial flavors and other words we can’t pronounce on the ingredients list a quick look at their website gives us the ingredients for every flavor they offer. The grapefruit and elderflower that I tried was made with real grapefruit juice, elderflower and raw cane sugar, and I can’t wait to try the blueberry vanilla, made with blueberries, vanilla bean, lime juice and cane sugar. Jason Houser, the chef behind Meat House Butcher Shop sources all the meat and poultry for their products from Bethel Trail Farms in upstate South Carolina and currently the weekly market tent is their only retail location. I can’t wait to go back to the market next week to learn a little bit more, try a different food stand, and maybe even come back with something fun to cook during the week. There was some homemade pasta that I need to go check out next Saturday, and I know my roommate still wants to try those waffles.
