Summer is now! With all the ups and downs of last year, not to mention the past several years, you deserve some time just for you. May I suggest a trip to a farmers’ market or two or three?

The idea behind shopping at a local farmers’ market is to buy local, more nutritious and fresher produce while supporting local farmers. You want organic products and are helping the environment by buying items that were not shipped around the world or across the country. These are noble ideas, but they may or may not be true. Unfortunately, like many other things in our life, farmers’ markets overall or the booths therein are very much subject to caveat emptor (buyer beware). I love going to farmers’ markets (and tend to buy way too much) so let me guide you along the way.

First, I will discuss the farmers’ markets’ misnomers and controversies and then make suggestions on finding markets and vendors selling real, local and nutritious food which they raised.

Let’s start at the beginning: when was the first market in the United States? Sources indicate anything from 1634 in Boston, to the Lancaster Central Market in 1730, and even the New Orleans French Market in 1791. You can do more research to determine the accuracy of each.

Let’s look at the reasons (I mentioned above) why foodies (like you and me) like farmers’ markets:

1. The food is fresher and thus more nutritious.
   Overall, this is true if the food is local and seasonal. The problem is many vendors are not necessarily the growers. They bought the goods and are reselling them. Not necessarily a bad idea if they bought them locally but consider this:
   • Three years ago, in a Boston farmers’ market I saw pineapples – definitely not local.
   • A friend who works for a very large bulk discount store (well known to all) also likes going to farmers’ markets. He tells me stories about seeing people loading up the day before with boxes and boxes of items from the bulk store and then the next day sees the same people selling the same items at the local farmers’ market for three to four times the price they paid. Of course, the vendor says he grew them locally.
   • A man I keep running into sells dates at the local farmers’ markets in the San Francisco Bay Area. When I first saw him, it was on Saturday in San Francisco. I asked where the dates were grown. He was very hesitant to reply. I mentioned that well over 90 percent of California Dates come from the Coachella Valley. He then said his dates were from Indio, the heart of the valley. I told him I grew up in the area and that was over 500 miles away, not exactly local. He told me he drives up for just that market. However, I have seen the same man with the same boxes of dates on several different days of the week in separate markets in the area.
2. You are supporting local farmers.
   This may or may not be correct. As mentioned above, the vendor may not be the farmer and may not be local.
3. The food is organic.
   Most people think farmers’ market food is organic. The truth is it may be and it may not be. Just because it is grown on a local farm by local farmers does not mean it is organic. (See Buying Local Goes Beyond A Farm's Distance.)
4. You are helping the environment by buying food that has not been shipped across the country or around the world.
   The carbon footprint of food involves many more factors than shipping and refrigeration. It is difficult to believe but farm-raised tilapia from Vietnam might have less of an overall carbon footprint (for me) than if I went to the local harbor and bought salmon from someone who caught it 150 miles off the California coast. Likewise, tomatoes shipped in from hundreds of miles away might have a lower carbon footprint per tomato than local ones because of the different operations and shipping of mega-farms versus a local farmer using a 20-year-old pick up to drive to the farmers’ market. Read The Carbon Footprint of Food for a more complete discussion on this.

Enough bad news on farmers’ markets. As I mentioned, I love farmers’ markets. You should love them too. Here are ideas and suggestions to ensure the vendors you buy from are actually the farmer who raised the food.

1. Research what is seasonal in your area. If a vendor has plums in December, then they probably are not local.
2. See if most of the market vendors are selling the same thing. If there are 10 booths and seven or eight look like they are selling basically the same thing, be suspect of numbers nine and 10 with different items. My favorite local market is the West Side Saturday Market in Santa Cruz. It is small and all the vendors carry basically the same types of produce albeit different varieties. To me, this is a good indication they are local and fresh.
3. It might be fun going to a farmers’ market with booths of crafts, “homemade” foods, beers, ciders, wines and animals to pet. However, my opinion—based on experience—is the more non-farmers’ booths there are the less likely the remaining booths will be local.
4. If organic is important to you, then directly ask the vendor to see his or her certificate. Also, ask for the name of the farm and look on the website.
5. Ask a few more questions if you want to know whether a farmer is local or not. Ask about the farm’s location. Ask about the farm’s size. Ask how long they have owned or worked on the farm. Ask them about growing the items. I explain to the booth attendant I am in the food business and would like to take a farm tour. I have found the truly local farmers who grow the food they sell are more than enthusiastic about showing off their farms. And if they offer, go! Ask if they would donate surplus crops to your class in the fall, or if they would come be guest speakers.
6. Look at the farmers’ market website. Does the sponsoring group clearly list on the website their requirements for vendors to be local, organic, etc.? Do they state how they enforce it?
7. Do the vehicles behind the booths look like farmers’ vehicles?
8. Farmers often sell produce in markets that is not pretty enough to sell in stores. There is nothing wrong with these products, they are just not pretty. If the products you are looking at look as highly polished and perfect as your local store, they are probably not grown by that person.
9. Is there too much commercialism either in a booth or for the market overall? It’s one thing to have a name banner, but when there starts to be matching reusable bags and a bunch of name-bearing decorations it probably isn’t a local family farm.
10. Finally, trust your instincts. If you feel something is not legitimate, it probably isn’t.

Now, many farmers’ markets have someone selling breads or pastries. Many have cheese vendors. You can apply the same rules as above to see if they are local. What I suggest is when you go to a farmers’ market you take an ice chest with some cold beverages or maybe even some hot coffee. Pack a cutting board and knife. Find a park, lake or beach, put down a picnic blanket (or find a table), and enjoy some fresh produce, bread or pastries and cheese. After all, remember, you deserve a break after this past year.

* Apologies to the Gershwin Brothers and Mr. Heyward for borrowing from their work on the title of this article, “Summertime and the Living is Easy.”

Adam Weiner, JD, CFSE, has been a culinary instructor in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than 17 years.