This market does not have a good reputation but is still successful – for some vendors.

Location

This outdoor market is right in the city centre of Bonn – former capital of Germany and city of Ludwig van Beethoven. This is the main shopping area, thousands and thousands of people are walking by everyday.

Those who make the money – they are at the right location

Some fruit and vegetable vendors benefit heavily from the many shoppers. How so? Well, they are located along the pedestrian “highway” which is the sort of North to South trajectory across the city centre. Nobody can escape these vendors calling out their produce and prices like on an oriental bazaar. The constant flow of pedestrians allows them not to rely on the loyalty of customers. Instead they focus on deals and focus on produce in high demand: it is now the season of asparagus (white & green) and strawberries. With these dominant colours the stalls look like flags.

This section of the market is the one which contributes to it’s bad reputation. Often you will hear complaints that when unpacking the merchandise at home, there will be a couple of “bad apples” in the bag. There are many stories about its origins. Some say it was mainly one stall owner responsible for the situation, who had even to give back his license, some say it is still valid. I would not wonder if the focus on price is the main reason. As a result the vendors who mainly get their merchandise at the wholesale market in nearby Cologne, cannot afford to buy the best quality. So bargain rules and finds its demand.

Some time ago a vendor at the “highway” started to prepare bags with mixed fruit, e.g. a pineapple, a few oranges, kiwis etc. and to sell them for 4€ each. Very practical when you are in a hurry and have to save money. Therefore quite a lot of his customers are students who then purchase their weekly stock in one go. He does this mainly in off-peak times when he has some time to prepare the bags. I think it is a nice marketing idea and service, it reminds me of farmers who deliver produce boxes to subscribers’ doorsteps.

The street food stalls

Some food carts benefit from the same location as well. Amongst them is the obligatory and popular bratwurst and currywurst one. Some years ago the vendors changed as the licenses were renewed. I have my doubts on how the process was managed, for sure it did not improve the quality of the offering. Still it is hard to resist a brat.

A bit uncommon is the wine stall, where you can share a glass or two. Potato pan cakes, fruit juices, stews are available for a quick lunch. Employees of the nearby offices and shops take advantage of it. So no worries to leave the spot hungry.

So where is the quality?

Some stall are worth being visited regularly. They are not so easy to discover and they do not present themselves as something special – I will come to the exception a bit later.

Two stalls focus on products from specific culinary regions: the Swabian and the Alpine one. Unfortunately both are not everyday on the market. The Swabian cuisine of Germany’s South West is a hearty one, capable of doing nice stuff out of poor peoples’ produce as the region once was. The “Maultaschen” – similar to ravioli – are certainly one of the better known products as well as Spätzle.

From the Alpine region, in this case Vorarlberg (Austria) and South-Tirol (Italy), another vendor offers a large variety of smoked hams, sausages and mountain cheeses as wells as bread. Basically everything which can be stored for a week or more. I am a particular fan of the vendor’s butter, very smooth and refined in taste. All the products are being sourced from traders with direct links to small producers, who are capable of ensuring a high product quality. The philosophy of the vendor is that only small producers can ascertain this culinary level.

A stall with vinegars, oils and spirits displays his merchandise very nicely: little bottles marked with handwriting, larger glass containers with oil to fill smaller ones. Only own branding, everything looks handmade and cute. First I thought it could be a franchise as the stall label looked professional, but the owner sources his merchandise from different small producers of the larger region, some of them quite experimental and interesting. Apparently the stall is also popular by those look for a birthday gift – like me.

My highlight – an innovative stall: CookIt

Since a couple years CookIt is on the market with a small dark green cart different in appearance to all the other ones and much nicer or more modern – see photo gallery above. The two brothers and a companion have started the idea to propose simple recipes and pack only the ingredients needed to cook it. The produce are mainly regional and truely fresh. The price of the ingredients is by portion for one person and depends on the needed ingredients for the recipe. Asking the owners how big the portions are, they answer that it fits their appetite – they are not the thinnest bunch.

I chose a chard-bacon-pasta with ricotta. All the ingredients were included, I needed only to add olive oil, salt & pepper from my pantry. Even though the recipe was neither very sophisticated nor complicated, the fresh ingredients made it a great meal.

As they started the brothers thought that the clientele would be mainly a younger crowd. But apparently the offer is welcomed by retirees as well, who do not want to store too much at home to reduce waste. And with one time cooking they have enough for two days.

Besides having a created a unique offer, CookIt is also active on social media where they present their newest recipes. For those who are not on Facebook, they have a web presence as well. When we talked a bit about the Bonn market and the lack of social media presence they believe that it rather depends on the vendors and their affinity to modern stuff. Themselves they see it as a tool to stay in contact with their clientele, to announce new recipes and make customers consequently come back to their stall. It certainly helps to avoid unnecessary trips when the recipes on offer aren’t the right ones.

The praise of the Cookit stall may sound like paid sponsorship – but I just like their idea and their product. For your experiences: tweet me.

Managing the market

The market is not anymore managed by the city of Bonn, but by Marktgilde, a professional market management company working across Germany. I heard several times that they are trying to improve the quality of the market, but seem to have hard times to do so. One quality fruit and vegetable vendor who is at the nearby Bad Godesberg market, refused their offer to join this high foot fall location. Well, let’s hope for the better.

All in all: a few stalls are interesting, some are fine for a bargain, but it is no jewel of the city of Bonn.

A little link list

• A post with many pictures from olive oil and sea salt
• The web presence of the Swabian stall
• CookIt: web presence & Facebook
• The oil, vinegar & spirit stall web presence
• My other posts on markets in Bonn: the organic one and the one in Bad Godesberg

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Hipster next to Bratwurst, sophisticated spice stall next to filtered coffee, an award winning butcher – all this in a small place – leaves me surprised. A pleasant one, despite the rain.

The setting

The suspension railway, the zoo and internationally known, now closed, dance theatre Pina Bausch. Those are the highlights of the city of Wuppertal.

The market is framed by the old town hall and some other less interesting architecture. The market has maybe 20 stalls – count them on the picture in the gallery. The walking distance from the suspension railway is about 5 minutes.

When approaching the market it appears like a classic, standard one. Looking a bit closer there a few unusual stalls worth discovering.

The classic stuff

What do you want to buy? Fresh fruits & vegetables? Bread, Australian style banana bread (?!), cheese, fish, flowers? No problem!

Some street food? You like, Bratwurst, Currywurst, grilled chicken, Asian fast food, German style donuts, filtered coffee, fish rolls? You will not leave the place hungry!

So lets check the gems.

Gem I

The award winning butcher Sonnenschein (sunshine) seemed to be very popular as there were three sales ladies behind the counter. The Feinschmecker, a food & travel magazine considered him to be amongst the best ones in Germany. The fridge at home was full, I did not want to buy anything, but the sales ladies allowed me to take some pictures. The offering was not spectacular, so I expect that the basic product quality itself must be good. Next time a purchase is a must.

Gem II

The spice stall is owned by a Iranian who lives in the city for decades and runs the stall since 28 years! He gave me a brief tour of the history of Iranians in Germany during the time when the Shah was replaced by Khomeini. Politics plays an important role in his life. It was the first time at a market that I had such a political conversation.

The offering is quite sophisticated and huge. Good olive oil next to all kinds of spices, soap, rice, caviar – all very nicely displayed. Hard not to buy something. And so I did: a Wuppertal fruit bread with spelt based dough.

Gem III

A new kid on the block. Workeat – the name of the stall which adds to the market a hipster flair. Established since a few weeks by 4 sports guys who came up with the idea of creating some healthy food out of pure self interest: they always had hard times to find decent food after all their work-outs. So they decided to create something new and healthy with other sport guys in mind – always with a touch of protein on top. And what happened: the majority of the customers are women. Probably not a big surprise when the vegetarian or vegan items like currys, wraps, salads and chocolate bars are part of the offering. Still the curry is available with meat and the smoothies are protein rich as well.

I had the chance to eat a curry with mango and snow pea based on whole-grain rice. Helped me to get over the cold in style and joy. The unsweetened apple muffin was great, worth the money. The guys worked for very long on the recipe and now a friendly baker is preparing them.

Besides the food, the drinks had hipster quality as well, be it fruit juices or unsweetened ice tea (not common in Germany), etc. all with fancy labels.

I wish those guys good luck, as they take their experience on the market as a test field for a possible further expansion.

All in all: when you are in Wuppertal and have some spare time go for the market gems.

A little link list:

• The official website of the market
• The award winning butcher Sonnenschein
• The hipsters with their stall Workeat
• More pictures on my photo site

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The market of Würzburg is one with strong regional roots.

It is located in the heart of the city next to the Marienkapelle a Gothic church. Würzburg is also quite known for its wine as well as for the Würzburg Residence, a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the world’s largest fresco from Tiepolo.

The market has a permanent structure with a transparent roof protecting buyers from the rain and still letting them feel that the church is still overlooking the market. There are temporary stands as well mainly on weekends with farmers selling their produce. Even though Würzburg is a provincial city in the region of Lower Franconia in Bavaria the market has some noticeable and popular offerings.

Famous is the Bratwurst stand with its long queues and very fast service.

For excellent sourdough rye bread go to the honey stand. There, one of the German gourmet popes, Wolfram Siebeck, noticed the excellent choice of honeys. Well these days the choice is a bit more focused.

During the summer time there is even an stand with regional artichokes, a vegetable which is rather rare in this environment. It is also sold when in flower even though it looks beautiful, I have never eaten that part.

In autumn sauerkraut is sold by the pound in platic bags, for instant indulgence (really). Of course apples, and other regional fruit are in abundance, the same is valid for potatoes etc.

One permanent stand is specialized on goat products: meat, sausages, milk, yoghurt, kefir, all things possible from this animal are being offered. This is not so common in Germany.

I was also quite impressed by the cheese stand from a guy who mainly sells his own cheese from the region at large. Generally German cheese needs some improvements, but that one I would cater to guest without getting ashamed.

Of course in the permanent structures there is also some non-regional products available, as on most markets these days. Still the link to the region is noticeable.

All in all: A food market which focuses on regional products with some specialities worth making a break when travelling by.

A little link list:

• A market website in German even with a webcam – no people right now …
• A great blog post on Würzburg, with many pictures and a large description of Würzburg, which I do not fully agree with …  from “averylonghoneymoon.wordpress.com”

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Chemnitz, formerly known as Karl-Marx-Stadt, is one of the larger cities in Saxony / Germany with a bit more than 200k inhabitants. As quite a few cities in Eastern Germany the population has declined after the re-unification in 1990, as employment opportunities became more limited. Still the city centre does not look poor as many buildings have been renovated. A clean and neat city. And in the pedestrian zone there is a market place with maybe a couple dozen stands.

I would consider it a typical market for a provincial city, still it has some own accents as well, mainly about regional products. The typical market consists of stands for flowers, fruit, vegetable, cheese, meat, sausages, bakery and … a Bratwurst stand. We are in Germany aren’t we?. There is usually always a stand with Mediterranean specialities mainly antipasti type of products like olives, dried tomatoes etc.

So no surprise?

Not quite!

Some stands were managed by Vietnamese, which is not common in West Germany. But during the socialist times, there was a small Vietnamese population working in a variety of factories. Some of them remained after the fall of the Wall.

There were a couple stands with Hungarian specialties. A friend of mine had a nice hypothesis for that: after the war when West Germans could afford vacation, Italy became a popular destination, and West Germans wanted to savor their vacation memories back home as well, and therefore Italian food made its inroads there. East Germans had their mass tourism in socialist countries and Hungary was a popular destination. And of course people wanted to savor their memories as well. This sounds like a good story, maybe it is even true.

The other surprises were the local/regional products there: linseed oil which seems to be part of the Saxon cuisine, e.g. on top of cooked potatoes. Linseed oil has a slight diarrhea effect, but the vendor insisted that the effect should be called stomach hygienic.

There were lots of different pickles: cucumbers, cauliflower, peppers etc. all nicely put together.

Furthermore there was a stand with products from water buffalo as we know them from Asia. There are only a few breeders in Germany and luckily I could see the end result. I tasted the water buffalo yogurt, it had kind of a taste of game, not something for the sensitive tongue, but I enjoyed the strong taste.

A nice little highlight was a Bratwurst stand which had a charcoal barbecue! It is really hard to find charcoal grills on German markets, but this one went even a step further and had it on a bike! A mobile barbecue, cool. According to the vendor it was economically successful. And I was not the first one who took a picture of this stand …

All in all: a typical mid town market with some nice surprises like the charcoal barbecue on a bike and some nice regional products.

A little link list:

• More on the city of Chemnitz in English

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