Given my tight schedule, I was only able to visit two farmers’ markets over the weekend, Copley Place in Boston on Friday and the market in Somerville on Saturday. The weather seemed just as odd in Boston as it had been in the Pacific Northwest this summer with Wednesday and Thursday as warm and humid as the middle of July and Friday as cool as October, and of course, this was reflected in the produce.
Outside of Union Square in NYC, I hadn’t been to a Farmers’ Market in the Northeast in five years, so I was very excited, especially since it was the height of apple season, and they seemed to be everywhere. Back in the Washington and Oregon, the Department of Agriculture did a bang up job over the years helping the apple growers concentrate their efforts on a half dozen varieties - you know the only ones you can get in the supermarkets these days - and it seems that there are only a few farmers who grow any old varieties. Fortunately, New England and the Northeast maintained much of the ‘old’ apple stocks, and it’s fairly easy to still find varieties that originated in England, France and here in the US over the last two to three hundred years.
As you can see from my photo album, there were plenty of apples to be had, including loads of Macouns, Cortlands, and Empires. There were many varieties that I was not familiar with, but the two that really caught my attention were the Burgundy and the Cushman. The Burgundy is a small to medium apple developed in New York in 1974, and it is an amazing tasting apple with reddish to dark burgundy skin and a brilliant pink hued flesh. For me its crispness and sweet/tart balance makes it the perfect apple. The Cushman is a small green apple with reddish streaks and a russet overlay. It has light yellow, sweet flesh. As I was perusing the apples at a number of the booths, I couldn’t help but overhear farmers describe the flavor and texture of many of their heirloom varieties by referencing to the mass-produced apples offered in the supermarkets. How sad!!!
Root vegetables, squash, and the first pumpkins were also widely available, including my favorite Long Island Cheese pumpkin. I was surprised that Siena Farm from Sutton, MA had so many huge sunflowers this late in the season, and they were breathtaking. The heirloom tomatoes most of the farmers were offering were another matter!
Comments