If you are even half as passionate as I am about cooking with the freshest ingredients possible, you already appreciate the importance of Farmers’ Markets.  Fortunately for all of us, they are seemingly everywhere.  When they appear, of course, depends on where you live, but as soon as there is something to sell, they pop up in town squares, school parking lots, or wherever they can attract folks interested in the freshest fruits and vegetables possible at (typically) amazingly low prices!

These markets are not confined to rural areas.  I worked in downtown Chicago for many years, and Daley Plaza in front of City Hall was filled to overflowing with farmer’s booths once each week during the summer months.  They also appeared at various times in many neighborhoods throughout the city.  I doubt Chicago is unique in this.  Some cities have year-round markets, although (and obviously) locally grown products are only available at certain times of the year.  Cleveland’s West Side Market and Detroit’s Eastern Market are two of my favorites.

In southwestern Michigan, many cities and towns sponsor weekly markets.  Some are small, some are huge, but most have 15 to 20 vendors selling everything from flowers and homemade pies to (my favorites) freshly picked fruits and vegetables.  Around here, they begin to appear in late May, but most of the early produce is shipped in from Indiana and points south.  The Michigan-grown products begin to appear in late July – or more specifically, about now!

My weekly trip to the nearest market means fresh corn, tomatoes, and beans – Jade beans to be precise (see below)  – will be featured menu items in our household for the remainder of each week (since the local market is open only on Wednesdays).  

I am writing this on a Wednesday evening, having just returned from said market.  One vendor, a wonderful Amish gentleman who has been a major participant in this market for many years, agreed to let me to take a few pictures of his offerings.  My explanation to him for taking the photos (i.e., for my blog) understandably did not resonate with him, but sharing photos of his fresh foods certainly did.

Returning home, I quickly prepared two of my seasonal favorites.  First, sliced tomatoes with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, my best extra virgin olive oil, and fresh basil from Grandma Karen's herb garden.  For the pepper, I highly recommend Whole Special Extra Bold Black Peppercorns available from Penzeys Spices!  The second is my interpretation of  Bruschetta Caprese.

I will guess (with some confidence) that all of us have one particular recollection of fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes.  That being, they taste and smell like no other tomato.  There is a very good, and very scientific, reason for that.  As we all know, tasting anything involves at least three of our senses – our senses of taste, smell, and feel (although sight and hearing are frequently involved, too, but not necessarily with tomatoes).  As fresh tomatoes continue to ripen (even after leaving the vine), several chemical reactions occurring within the tomato produce aromatic compounds which we sense (smell) with an overwhelmingly positive response (at least we do if we like tomatoes!).  Chemical reactions, however, are profoundly influenced by the ambient temperature.  Higher temperatures (within reason) produce more rapid reactions, and, correspondingly, lower temperatures produce slower reactions.

With tomatoes, however, lower temperatures (i.e., refrigeration temperatures) stop these reactions in their proverbial tracks.  Not only that, when the ambient temperature increases the reactions do not restart, although some recent research has shown that restarting can occur after 24 to 48 hours – or well after the tomato has quite possibly rotted in place.  Without the benefit of those aromatics produced by those important reactions, the chilled tomato becomes nearly tasteless!  The point of all this is simple – never refrigerate a tomato!  You will be amazed at how good even a “hot-house” tomato will taste after sitting on your kitchen counter for a few days.  Just keep them away from any place cold!

One more item.  I mentioned Jade beans earlier.  Grandma Karen claims Jade beans are the best tasting beans of any bean she has ever experienced.  I’ve learned not to argue with statements like that.  If you live anywhere near southwestern Michigan, you can sample Jade beans at the Richland Farmer’s Market any Wednesday afternoon.  Everyone else, unfortunately,  is on their own.  I have no idea how pervasive Jade beans may be in the green bean world.  If you can find them, though, I guarantee you a new high in the green bean culinary world!

Just keep those tomatoes out of the refrigerator!

Buon appetito.

P.S.  To all the farmers who help make all this possible, a hearty mille grazie!

First, make the Pie Crusts  Note the particles of butter and lard.  Remember, no substitutions.

As you have undoubted surmised by now, I am unabashedly partial to Italian cuisine.  Even so, I will be among the first to admit Italy has no monopoly on foods that taste good.  Anyone who enjoys eating as much as I do knows that every country – if not every region within every country – can lay claim to some culinary masterpiece.   In no particular order, after Italian, my favorite ethnic cuisines are German, Greek, Spanish, Asian, Indian, English, Polish, Middle-Eastern and, of course, French.

In 1651, chef La Varenne wrote Le Cuisinier François, considered to be the foundation of modern French cuisine.  This highly influential book was one of the first to set down codified, systematized rules and principles of food preparation.  

By the late 1890s, French cuisine was firmly ensconced as the preferred food of aristocrats and the upper classes in both Europe and the United States.  In the early twentieth century, Georges Auguste Escoffier updated La Varenne’s rules and principles for preparing food and established a new system for the kitchen.  He divided the kitchen into five stations, each responsible for different components of a dish.  His system, along with the publication of Le Guide Culinaire in 1903, cemented France’s place in culinary history.  Culinary schools still teach it, and most highly-rated restaurants still use it.

So while they might not have invented cooking, the French were the first and the best at creating systems and rules for cooking, writing them down, and passing them on.  That's why professionals and amateurs alike sauté instead of "cook quickly in oil", julienne instead of "cut into thin strips", and purée instead of "blend into liquid".