It's opening day at the Baltimore Farmers' Market under the Jones Falls Expressway, and the line grows long at the Curry Shack.
Three years ago, Didi and Brian Johnson opened their stall at both the Baltimore and Waverly markets and quickly attracted a ravenous following. The Johnsons' jerk chicken, plantain chips, creole red beans and rice, samosas, soups and curries often sell out well before the market closes. This year, they will expand to the weekly market at the Village of Cross Keys.
With lively food and personalities to match, the Johnsons, and scores of other homegrown entrepreneurs, are reconfiguring farmers' markets across the state. As markets open for the new growing season, customers are as likely to find grilled portobello-mushroom-and-feta sandwiches, vegan split-pea soup, gooey pastries and blistering salsa as mounds of tomatoes, peppers, peaches and pears.
Once the typical farmers' market was a bustling but basic source of produce; now, it's often a gourmet cafe/community center/green-grocer hybrid.
Wendy Bullock's weekend is not complete without attending the farmers' market "at least once." At the Baltimore Farmers' Market, she and Elijah Smith order red beans and rice, samosas and West Indian patties from the Curry Shack. Bullock, a registered nurse and spring-roll fanatic, has already patronized Suwannee, the Thai food stand.
Over the years, the market has changed a lot, Bullock says. "It used to be fruit and veggies. Now it's everything."
The introduction of prepared foods (and open-air seating) at markets comes with a renewed stress on nutrition, education and custom service more typical of a specialty-food shop. Whether offering a goat-cheese-and-sweet-potato galette or a cup of hot, lemon-ginger tea, merchants often include a mini sermon on a product's unique health benefits.
Selected vendors, as well, will take orders for the following week or prepare a dish to vegan specifications.
Increasingly, global foodways converge at the farmers' market, where it can be one-stop shopping for Somalian meat pies, fruit and nut balls presented in boxes like Japanese sweets, smoked garlic, blackberry-lime sherbet, Thai sticky rice with mango and other delicacies.
For Tony Evans, coordinator of farmers' markets for the Maryland Department of Agriculture, the new market experience revitalizes an old concept. "A rising tide raises all boats. [The increase of prepared-food offerings is] the new swell in the tide," he says.
