Balance of Food

Tomato trust at a farmers market is a cherished responsibility

We've learned that most produce can't be bought on looks alone. Like people, you have to figure out whether they are good on the inside. Unlike people, you can touch the produce to get a sense of whether the produce is good.

Tomatoes are the most likely on the produce list to need a subtle touch to know whether the produce is good.

You can touch the tomatoes in the grocery store but I haven't bought a grocery store tomato in years. You normally can touch the tomatoes at the farmers market but not during a pandemic, such as COVID-19.

We can't explain why touching a tomato in a grocery store is okay but not at a farmers market. These days, you follow the new order of farmers markets.

Make al fresco dining the new trend in the streets

Inside a farmers market in the new normal in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

Farmers markets in the new normal in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

Will COVID-19 play a role with farmers markets?

BalanceofFood.com farmers market coverage

Trust issues are very real based on book sales and daytime talk show topics. You are trusting someone else to do what comes naturally to you.

Know your farmer is one of our battleworn phrases. I didn't know the actual person who picked my tomatoes. She did a good job. The tomatoes were a bit watery but that is completely normal. Hothouse tomatoes at this time of year will only work so well.

Know your farmer works as well as can be expected but not being able to touch produces trust issues and a less-than-ideal farmers market experience.

Even the best tomato hunters with touch can still pull up a lesser tomato. You feel like if you picked a bad tomato, the fault lied within. As tensions grow in a pandemic, blaming someone else is easier than blaming one's self.

You can trust what farmers market workers are doing with produce. No relationship is 100% trust but you can relax and hope they pick you a winner. If you find they are not, ask good questions, key to any trust issues. The answers you get will determine trust. Ask nicely. Farmers market workers are under enough stress.

You still will get a better experience at a farmers market even in a pandemic than you get in a grocery store. The farmers market experience is under a cloud right now. Trust is harder under those circumstances.

photo credit: me

Make al fresco dining the new trend in the streets

Takin' It to the Streets is perhaps the only Doobie Brothers song with Michael McDonald that is worth hearing. That is the message cities are looking into this summer to give outdoor seating for restaurants thanks to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Restaurants have struggled with being not open; open but only doing takeout and delivery; open recently but at a capacity around 25%. Being able to have tables outdoors allows for social distancing and to give more capacity to restaurants.

Closed streets allows for more space for people to walk and keep 6 feet from each other.

Vilnius, Lithuania is using its plazas, squares and streets to expand outdoor seating in the Old Town of the city. One of the hardest hit cities in Italy, Milan is incorporating outdoor seating.

U.S. cities that have brought out outdoor seating for restaurants include Berkeley (CA), Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Tampa, Las Vegas, San Jose (Al Fresco San Jose), Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati. New Hampshire is only allowing outdoor dining.

Cities could use wide-open spaces such as parking lots for giant outdoor stadiums that are not currently in use for a gathering of food trucks with seating for social distancing.

Closed streets can also help farmers markets get more space for vendors and social distancing. Farmers markets are considered essential yet some cities such as Chicago are struggling with how to make them safer.

Inside a farmers market in the new normal in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

Farmers markets in the new normal in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

Will COVID-19 play a role with farmers markets?

BalanceofFood.com farmers market coverage

We talk about the lack of normal during this pandemic. Restaurant seating al fresco in streets, parking lots, and even piazzas and squares won't seem normal compared to 2019. They might be the new normal for a long time. The summer of 2021 may look more like the summer of 2020 than the summer of 2019.

Restaurant owners are worried that even if they reopen to customers whether customers want to return. They may not be willing to go inside even with reduced capacity but more willing to add al fresco to their word salad this summer.

Car traffic is reduced due to the pandemic. As someone living in a large city without a car, I see a lot of cars on the road going somewhere. Car drivers would be inconvenienced by road closures, though those road closures could be limited to afternoons for farmers markets and evenings for restaurants.

Car drivers don't like making sacrifices; the value of restaurants and food trucks having more space outweighs needs of car drivers.

Open-air restaurants would help return some normalcy and produce jobs in a struggling economy. We could use some of that normalcy in the warmer weather.

photo credit: MSNBC

One-way signs in grocery stores aren't helpful because people won't follow them

One-way signs are needed for streets and roads to improve the flow of traffic. One-way signs are not needed in grocery stores because no one is going to follow a one-way sign in a grocery store.

You've seen them on the ground, mostly on the ground. A few smarter stores have them at eye level. The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has brought about one-way signs in grocery stores.

The intention seems sincere. Getting traffic in a grocery store aisle to go in the same direction so you don't come head on with another shopper.

Grocery carts are not cars. Grocery store aisles don't have dotted white lines. One-way grocery stores are a bother because no one logically thinks about direction in a grocery store.

There was a security guard in Detroit who was killed because he required a customer to wear a mask. Tensions are frayed. Adding one-way directions to a grocery store aisle isn't actually helping.

A law or rule has to reflect norms within a society and be reasonable. The north stretch of Lake Shore Drive (U.S. 41) in Chicago used to have a speed limit of 45 mph with multiple lanes in each direction. Few people ever followed the speed limit because the road felt like a highway. Driving 45 mph wasn't reasonable.

They changed the speed limit sign … to 40 mph. Sigh.

Inside a farmers market in the new normal in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

Farmers markets in the new normal in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

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Intentions are nice but if they don't fit set patterns or come across as reasonable, people will ignore the rules. That is worse than not having one-way signs.

When I first heard about the one-way signs via social media, I felt bad for those shoppers. A couple of weeks later, I looked down in a grocery store to realize I was in the middle of this experiment. Most shoppers either didn't know or didn't care.

The width of a grocery store aisle is serious business in grocery stores. Maximum width allows those who prefer or need carts to compete with those carrying baskets to get around well. Older grocery stores have more narrow aisles, like some older cities such as roads in Paris and Rome. 

Pre-pandemic, you had more shoppers with baskets. People with baskets are the queen pieces in chess; they can move anywhere anytime. Trader Joe's wants you to use carts instead of baskets adding to the traffic in the aisles. 

Even if you want to follow the one-way signs, and good for you to try, you will get more frustrated with shoppers who don't know or care that they exist. If you are playing chess and the rest of world is playing Monopoly, no one is having fun.

Social distancing is crucial in this pandemic. Common sense helps too. Don't take too long in a spot. Be aware of other shoppers and whether they can get by with a shopping cart. Courtesy and awareness are more effective than one-way signs.

Reducing the capacity of a grocery store allows for more room for the shoppers without having to follow more signs and rules. Harder to do than putting signs on the floor but a better way to improve traffic flow in a grocery store in a pandemic.

photos credit: me

Inside a farmers market in the new normal in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

You wait in line, not too long. When you get to the entrance, the hand sanitizer was required. Welcome to a farmers market in 2020.

You couldn't approach the produce, watching from a distance. Credit or debit was the word. The vendors were in a half circle with no aisles to bump into other people.

Not the usual farmers market scene but an attempt at an interim normal.

Customers were moving in a timid fashion. No socializing among customers or vendors. I missed the asparagus that I hoped would be all set to go. The early May farmers market doesn't produce a lot of good options.

This also reflects that this farmers market isn't my normal farmers market but my normal farmers market is charging a $9.99 delivery fee. I love you Green City Market, but that is ridiculous.

Farmers markets in the new normal in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

Will COVID-19 play a role with farmers markets?

BalanceofFood.com farmers market coverage

The new normal involves pre-orders. This goes against my own personal spirit of being inspired by the produce at the farmers market and then making purchases accordingly. This might work in May but definitely not in July.

Patience is still the key. Farmers markets are trying to figure all of this and plan with safety in mind.

What farmers markets offer is worth this sacrifice. But this sacrifice needs to be easier. People are shopping in grocery stores. Farmers markets can be as safe as grocery stores. People need farmers markets as a viable shopping option.

photos credit: me

Farmers markets in the new normal in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

Depending on where you are in North America, some areas have had farmers markets going all along in a limited form. For most of North America, May brings the farmers market season. Outdoor farmers markets will bloom though not in the same way or the same speed thanks to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Patience and patience will help the process along. Keeping distance and having to wait to get into the farmers market are some of the changes in 2020.

We've seen some markets go to a delivery option where you order online and pick up your food at a designated spot. That takes away the charm of a conversation with your farmer and choosing your own produce. Safety triumphs over the usual nuances of a farmers market.

Your local farmers market will have its own rules and guidelines. Be careful to follow them. The farmers and vendors are also trying to be careful.

Some DC markets ran into issues over social distancing. Seattle farmers markets were closed for a large chunk of time. The start of Chicago farmers markets has been delayed without a plan in place for opening the markets.

Farmers markets have been considered essential similar to grocery stores. Figuring out how to make that work has been a concern. Places that have year-round markets have been the canaries in the coal mine. Others can learn the good and bad from those markets.

Those places that are starting their farmers markets in May don't have much of an excuse for not starting. Hard to plan during a pandemic but you've had 7 weeks to come up with a plan. Limit people inside the market, letting people in as others are leaving.

We aren't asking for farmers markets to be what they were in 2019. Create a new normal for 2020. You will find in a Venn diagram that the people who go to farmers markets are those most likely to conform to protecting themselves with masks and face coverings.

The delay or uncertainty for the farmers markets produces one difficult problem for farmers. If the markets are uncertain, they might not show up in 2020.

Farmers have a certain rhythm to doing multiple markets during the week to justify making those trips. If they can only travel to half or a third of those markets, they may not make trips at all. The farmers and consumers both lose in that exchange.

Make the move to bring containers to farmers markets

We had a marvelous suggestion last summer to bring containers to collect fruits to save their containers in a pro-environment way. A lot of pro-environment moves have been put on hold during the pandemic.

If you still believe in this, let them pour the fruit into the container that you bring. They don't want to touch your container. You don't want to touch their container.

Sadly, you might have to give this up for awhile. Know your farmer is still crucial. Ask questions. Good communication is always important.

Will COVID-19 play a role with farmers markets?

The sad reality is that liability is a factor. If you can set up delivery options that are practical for those with cars or higher incomes, you reduce your liability. We already know the social aspect of farmers markets will be minimized in 2020. No sampling. You can still ask your farmer if there is an actual market but those conversations will be with masks.

Farmers markets won't be casual outings for people who aren't familiar to learn more. Farmers markets in a pandemic means you have to know exactly what you want in advance of your shopping.

BalanceofFood.com farmers market coverage

Grocery shopping has become more stressful but the basics of grocery shopping haven't changed, unless you count the one-way stickers in store aisles.

Farmers market shopping will look very different for those communities that have farmers markets. You may have to spend a lot more time online to try and get what you want.

Farmers markets are essential. We need structure in place to show that they are essential to nutrition for people at a most important time.

We found a local farmers market open tomorrow. We will have more on this encounter next week to get an inside perspective.

photos credit: EdiblePhoenix.com; me