Things I love (and am thankful for) Thursday
Farmers markets around the world differ in range, aesthetics and personality. Whenever I travel to a different country I make an effort to check out the local offerings and interact with locals.
A Farmers Market in Argentina
A variety of dried fruits on offer in Thailand
Naturally died yarn on sale in Peru.
An array of greens in South Korea.
South Korean markets are open Mon-Fri, 7am-7pm. The vendors lease a space to display their items and set their food out every morning and pack it away every night.
The sellers are actually not the farmers but family members of the farmer or families who’ve been in the business for a long time.
They offer the freshest produce with minimal packaging at the cheapest price. I get to pick the individual items I wish to eat , rather than being forced to buy a pre-packaged bag of food. And best of all , I can ask about their practices and choose to buy organic and/or locally grown food.
A beautiful young girl selling odds and ends in the Philippines.
Farmer’s market in Chile. Look at those avocados!
Cambodia’s green banana’s
The Vegan Urbanite 
I do the same… when I lived in Costa Rica, the highlight of my week was going to the local farmers’ market on Sundays. Now that I live in London, I even work for the farmers’ market. I get really sad seeing people stock up on fresh veg, fruit, etc. in huge supermarket chains, when they could just get it from their local markets.
Love the naturally dyed yarn picture!
I completely agree Alualuna.
What also bothers me is all the individual packaging of fruit and veg bought in supermarkets. At farmers markets you’re in control of how much plastic you use/ don’t use. P.S I’m planning move to move to London next year with my partner, who’s English. We visited last year and I fell in love with Quorn and Linda McCartney’s vegan sausages. You are so lucky!
You’ll have plenty of markets to enjoy in London when you move here. The people I work for (www.lfm.org.uk) currently run about 18 markets in the city, and then there are also other markets (not all farmers’ markets, but still nice food markets – “Real Food” markets, Borough market, Maltby Street, etc.). Still, I don’t think the Brits used to have much of a market culture, even LFM was set up by an American some ten years ago only and there are still many people you have to convince that it’s worthwhile doing your food shopping at the market rather than at Tesco/Sainsbury/Waitrose.
I have never actually had Quorn (I don’t think it’s vegan?), nor tried Linda McCartney’s sausages. I don’t eat that much faux meat (it also tends to be expensive), and prefer tofu & tempeh generally.
By the way, I plan on starting a food blog within the next few months (waiting to get a digital camera), and once I do, I’ll definitely be posting plenty of pics from the markets as well. 🙂
OH NO. You’re right about Quorn. It uses egg as a binding agent. That’s a shame, I did enjoy the texture when I had it in England. But you’re right, tofu, beans and tempeh are the best. Sounds like you have an interesting job. I look forward to seeing some of your pictures.