A market can be full of stories. This one delivered many.

Intro

Schlebusch is a neighbourhood in Leverkusen, a city close to Cologne, which is not known for being a touristic attraction. You will probably travel there only if you are fan of the successful soccer club Bayer 04 Leverkusen or the even more famous company Bayer AG.

The market itself is in a residential neighbourhood and not the only one in town. It might have a few dozen stalls or so. It has all the stalls necessary for daily needs: fruits and veggies, lots of meat, fish, cheese, eggs, honey and the like.

The customers all looked like they were coming from all directions of the neighbourhood, most of them seemed to bring their own bags saving plastic in the city with this famous chemical company (Bayer AG).

The little stories

Talking to strangers is rewarding.

The butcher

The butcher I talked to, serves the market since 35 years. He won’t have somebody taking up his business when he retires in the near future. It is just hard work, starting very early in the morning – not appealing to many. And business is not easy. He had a pre-ordered Barbary duck from France but the buyer failed to show up. Selling it for 25€ instead of 35€ was still a hard task.

80 to 90% of his clientele are regular ones. They mainly come because of the better quality and a wider choice in comparison to supermarkets. There was boar and deer in the offering, not for much longer as the the hunting season was ending. He has rabbit all year long, in the past this was also only a seasonal product. Rabbit has its fans, I am wondering how people learned to appreciate it, as it is not widespread in German cuisine. He could pinpoint to a certain category of people buying it.

German markets are in decline rather than on the rise, he stated, and a solution on how to change this did not come up. For sure social media as a tool to attract a new clientele was not his worry. This always puzzles me a bit, as I see US & UK markets being active in this field.

The vegetable seller

He had a cold and was not in the most talkative mood. But at least he allowed me to take some pictures. And he told me that truly the demand for sweet potatoes, US import in this case, was on the rise, even though there a certainly not as common as the good old potato.

The fish ladies

The fish ladies had a much clearer opinion on how to make the market more attractive: shift the operations to a later hour when young families have already done their breakfast and are ready to go on a Saturday. And offer them also some street food as they enjoy eating something different but on a budget.

The fish ladies knew their customers and have seen some of them getting old, suffering from dementia and even dying. They see themselves not only as business persons but also as companions of their customers. They enjoy this a lot, even though the stories were not always jolly.

For one story they pitied me because I had no chance to see it on this day: every Saturday there was these two big dogs waiting at the entrance area of the market on their own, while their “master” was doing shopping. They sit here, do not move, watch the scenery and do not bother anybody. A pleasure to everybody.

When I wanted to take pictures of the merchandise, the ladies first made sure that everything looked pretty. I was not used to it, but the wait was worth it – check the pictures in the gallery above with a large choice of smoked fish: kipper, mackerel, eel, halibut, herring and more.

The Sorb lady

While I was discussing with the fish ladies on how to get a younger crowd to the market, an old lady approached me. She first told me that the younger preferred the organic farmer’s market not so far away. She had a bad experience there: money was stolen from her purse once. Therefore she does not go there anymore.

And then she told me a bit about her own history: she is a Sorb or how she preferred to call it: a Wend. I tend to forget about this centuries old Slavic speaking population in Eastern Germany. It turned out to be more than a recap. I learned about the complicated times during the Nazi regime, where efforts were made to teach the Sorbs/Wends to speak the German language only. Apparently they got teachers even from the Alsace region, whereas the Sorb ones had to got in other areas. She continued with a few other stories about frictions between different cultures in Germany and that led her to believe that tolerance was a necessity in life.

The epilogue

I made a few purchases: smoked fish and some Gouda with cep, both very nice. But what I will remember most are the chats I had during the short visit with all the locals.

All in all: A nice neighbourhood market, which is just missing a little spot where people sip a coffee and exchange their stories

A little link list:

• Overview on the markets in Leverkusen, incl. Schlebusch – German but easy to translate
• There does not seem to be a lot on the Internet on this market

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After my post on the Porz market in Cologne, a friend told me to better visit the Rodenkirchen Saturday outdoor market as it offered better food quality. He was right.

Rodenkirchen is the most Southern neighborhood of Cologne, directly on the Western banks of the Rhine river. The market with a couple dozen or so stalls is at the centre of the shopping area (scroll down for map).

Carnival time

Currently the Cologne area is dominated by the last days of the carnival season. Carnival music everywhere, basically all songs celebrating the city of Cologne as the best place to be, including the soccer club 1.FC Köln, girls and at times the local public transportation company KVB. Nice mix.

Due to carnival the number of stalls was reduced, as there was a need to have space for the live music, marching bands and people drinking and dancing. So the market was full of loud music enjoyed by everybody. Ladies in fur coats were dancing while waiting to be served, vendors wore costumes and sang along. Great ambiance.

Upmarket offering

For German standards the offering is rather upmarket: a good artisan cheese selection, a good choice of meat, e.g. quails from France, rabbit, German patés, oysters and even real truffles!

The vendors explained me that the purchasing power of the population is quite high in comparison to other Cologne markets. As one butcher who serves 18 markets with 4 trailers told me, he has to adapt to each location with his meat and sausages offering, as taste and wallets vary across the city. In less wealthy locations, he does not even start displaying quails for example.

Of course good vegetables were available as well. The lamb’s lettuce was definitely better than the ones in the supermarkets. All the cabbages looked great as well. There was even local Jerusalem artichoke available and much more. But I still have to get used to the fact that fresh tomatoes are also available in winter time.

Truffles in Germany

There was something which really caught my eye: it shined like a gold nugget in a river bed or so: at the corner of a fruit & vegetable stall, there was a lady selling truffles. This was a first for me on a German outdoor market. The lady, Sabine Hörnicke, who just occupied that little spot had a few tubers from Italy to sell – really tempting.

She owns a business called Tuber Germania, trades in truffles, trains truffle dogs and helps to re-introduce this fungi into Germany. I did not even know that it was possible here, but apparently there was a significant production in Germany in the 19th century until World War I. I am curious about when this production will pick up again. It seems to be a hard task to build on those forgotten traditions.

The view of an Italian family

An Italian couple with a child did extensive purchases at the market, so I felt the urge to ask them about this market in comparison to those they experience in Italy. Well, they like the Rodenkirchen market and considered the quality to be good but the prices higher than in Italy. Rodenkirchen market seemed a bit small to them as they were used to much bigger markets with a wider choice in Italy, lets say 20 vegetable stalls instead of a few as here. A wider choice of vendors results into some headache at the beginning when one does not know the market to be sure to get the freshest product, but once having a vendor of choice, shopping becomes a quick thing to do.

With all their experience they liked to do the groceries here at the market, their heavy bags were certainly the proof.

A little marketing activity on the market

From my experience German farmers’ markets do not invest a lot in marketing as in comparison to the UK or US counterparts. In the UK initiatives like Love your local market or in the US the Farmers Market Coalition try to promote awareness and more. In contrast to this, there is little social media activity and not a lot of promotional activities in Germany. At least they do not seem to be very organized and consistent.

So I was surprised to see a customer with a shopping bag printed with “Mein Wochenmarkt” (my farmer’s market). He told me that from time to time they are being distributed for free, unfortunately not on this day. I am not sure if they are the best tool to promote visits at the market, but for sure I would love to have one. Creates a sense of belonging to a community, probably.

All in all: A really good market for quality food purchases, worth a little detour

A little link list:

• Wiki with all the Cologne markets
• Hope to find more

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