First things first!

What do you do first when you arrive at your vacation destination? Visit the market of course! So we had to get up a bit earlier on that wonderful day to drive to Pont-l’Abbé in the Bretagne (Brittany in English) region of France to get to the market in a decent time.

The setting of the produce section of the market at the Place Gambetta is very nice as it is contoured by linden trees. The two rows of stalls were facing each other, making strolling and buying very convenient. It was off-season, still plenty of people were making their purchases on this Thursday.

When reaching a new market I am always a bit nervous and hectic. What am I going to expect? How many stalls does the market have? Will I discover something new? What is the specialty on this market? Those are all the questions coming to my mind. And then I want to take pictures without annoying people. In short: I should learn to relax a bit One day I will.

Getting the overview

First I made a quick tour getting an idea what the market is about. The one in Pont-l’Abbé is what I call a typical French market: produce focused, predominantly from the region, often from producers themselves who are willing to have a chat and tell you about their products. There is nothing hipster like to discover, not a lot of streetfood. It seems to me that the innovations themselves have been the occurrence of organic produce and payment via credit card only. In short: the market is about seasonal quality produce for the daily cuisine which is made from scratch.

The offering is a classic one: vegetables, fruit, cheese, (salted) butter, meat & sausages, a bit of bread and pastry, mushrooms, etc. Still as a tourist who cannot store a lot of things, there is something to buy and eat. Strangely enough I did not see fish despite Pont-l’Abbé being a coastal town. It seems rather to be a business of the market halls.

What were the discoveries?

We were lucky as we had a stove, fridge and dishwasher (!) in our vacation home: no significant restrictions for shopping.

I come from sausage country, especially those you just put in the pan. And I was lucky. The producer “La ferme de Kérautret” raises his own animals, get them killed in a nearby slaughterhouse before processing them into the right cuts and sausages. The reason for the animals not being killed on site are the EU laws with their standards including hygiene which makes is hard to maintain an own small slaughterhouse. I got some duck and pork sausages which were gone instantly in the evening after a long day on the road (I am not afraid of having food away from a fridge for a longer period of time). They were certainly worth the purchase, such great taste, no need to add anything, not even my beloved mustard.

And then the tomatoes from an organic stall. At home tomatoes are usually a disappointing experience for me. It does not matter where I buy them, they never seem to have a truly great taste. A friend of mine recently went to the Romanian country side and discovered how much taste they can really have. I was jealous since I am looking for years into such an experience. Here they had different colors and shapes. Yellow, green, red, round, egg shaped. In the evening I just cooked them all in one pot for a sauce and I was surprised: such a nice play of acidity and sweetness, it was truly great. Something you could truly call a tomato.

I also purchased some nice salted butter and cheese from a small organic stall. The Bretagne cake we bought from a bread and pastry stall was rather uninteresting. The honey from buckwheat or chestnut areas had real intense aroma and made its way back home.

Street food

What is “always” to be found on French markets are a certain type of take-away food stalls. Usually they have huge pans (1m in diameter perhaps) on a stove. Classic foods are paella or couscous, but also other dishes I am less familiar with. We skipped these ones, but tried some vegetarian samosas from a Vietnamese (?!) stall. Great taste, complex and very pleasant level of heat.

By the way: it is easy to heat up your food, there is a public (?) microwave not far from the produce section, in front of the market hall.

Epilogue

Was it worth to have visited the market as the first thing? For sure! We got a taste of the area and had something to eat in the evening. In one of the next posts I will report about the market hall in Pont-l’Abbé.

One little remark: I described mainly the produce section at the place Gambetta, the larger part of the market is at the place de la République in front of the market hall around the corner where the majority of the stalls are to be found, but they less produce ones.

All in all: The market in Pont-l’Abbé is a classic French market with all the goodies you need for cooking and a little bit of take away food.

A little link list:

• The market mentioned on the homepage of the city of Pont-l’Abbé
• The site of the ferme de Kérautret who had such great sausages
• My other posts on French markets

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Some time ago I blogged on Soulard Market in St. Louis, Missouri and I knew it would not be the last time. And so I re-visited it after a few years.

Soulard Market is still impressive to me. It has a very nice, quite original choice of products, catering for needs of all types of communities. The meat comes from all kinds of animals, incl. frogs, the vegetables appear in all their shapes and colours, there is nuts I have not seen elsewhere like whole black walnuts, which are really hard to crack, there is a great spice shop, of course there are also cheeses, even raw milk ones, and seafood is available (sea is quite far). But there is also funny popcorn, donuts etc. Not everything is regional, but everything is interesting and mostly of good quality.

And the crowd visiting the market seems to be as the market itself: rather unpretentious, not flashy, and with very diverse backgrounds, kind of little melting pot. Often people are coming with trolleys to carry their purchases, as it seems to be affordable for everyone unlike on some farmers markets.

Apparently a lot of vendors remain the same as the market has not changed much over the years. It has resisted any potential gentrification as described e.g. for Boston. Yes I missed the vendor of the hot sauces. The Goose Poop (a relish) stand was new to me and showed clearly attempts to create an own brand, rather unusual for this market. There was a new food stand as well, probably the one & only which might be close to be called hipster. They sold nice spring rolls, wraps and alike, ginger salad and more (how does that fit with Dr. Pepper, guys?). But otherwise? …

There seemed to be no substantial change. Is this good? Well, people seem to like it, the flow of visitors never stopped despite the hot humid summer. It is also nice to see some things become a tradition, having own roots and may be called something like home. Despite the lack of change, I have not observed complacency.

I am really curious about the times to come and how new generations of visitors and vendors will shape the market or how the master plan of the city of St. Louis will be put into action (or has it already been put into action?).

All in all: Soulard Market remains one of my favorite ones for its wide diversity in products and visitors, for its down to earth approach, and maybe for the stubbornness to remain as it is.

A little link list

• The official website – kind of …
• The one of the Historic Soulard Market Merchants Association Official Website soulardmarketstl.com
• On facebook
• On Twitter
• Soulard market on the St. Louis city site
• Master plan of the city of St. Louis concerning the market
• An interesting perspective on the development of the Boston Public Market and its impact on gentrification – from untappedcities.com
• A nice video presenting the market from Phil Stephenson

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On the Dewey square in the middle of the city of Boston and next to the Boston South Station is one of their public markets which is indeed a farmers’ market. Quite a clever location, even though the many people seem to be in the rush to go somewhere. And there are a lot of tall office buildings around the market giving almost the feeling of being in a valley. So there is people coming during the day, placing their orders and picking it up after work is finished.

And the market has a lot to offer for daily consumption: fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, milk products, bakery goods of all kinds, pasta, mushrooms etc. and a mobile coffee stand. The latter one is very important to me. To my surprise there is also a stand representing the organization of the Boston Public Market (BPM) with a person informing the public as well as replacing vendors when they go for lunch or so.

One particular farmer impressed me: Carl Hills who grows more than 50 varieties of tomatoes!! He did not have all of them on the stand, but quite a nice selection. I am wondering how he is managing his farm with such a diversity. According to him, he learned that over time as he is not new in the business. And the tomatoes tasted really good.

The bread from the Swissbäkers stand did not impress that much, but it was still good. The selection of Fromage Blanc – French for curd – was nice. Unfortunately I could not taste the pasta sauce from the mushroom stand, if it as good as the mushrooms on display, then it is worth being bought. By the way pasta, there was also a stand dedicated to that produce in all kinds of shapes and colors, a nice temptation.

Despite the not so big size of the market for a city like Boston, it spreads a nice ambiance in the surroundings of business and office towers full of busy people. Walking by the stands during a lunch break seems to be like a little vacation for eyes and brain before the stress starts again. And in the evening you pick up your purchases to prepare a simple but tasty meal at home for a smile on your face and a happy stomach. Or so.

All in all: A very pleasant market in a busy environment with some good quality produce to be discovered

A little link list:

• Official website with all the ongoing developments
• Website of the impressive tomato farm
• An interesting perspective on the development of the Boston Public Market and its impact on gentrification – from untappedcities.com
• A listing of the other Boston farmers markets

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