High summer at the Carrboro Farmers' Market: Elysian Fields Farm displays
heirloom Green Zebra, German Johnson and Orange Blossom tomatoes.
It’s 9:46 AM on a sweltering September Saturday and I’ve already violated the first cardinal rule of the Carrboro Farmers’ Market: Arrive early. Seriously early. Snarled traffic, testy drivers, and a line of ravenous foodies snaking out of the gazebo where five esteemed local chefs are serving haute picnic fare—that’s the payback for those of us who slept in this morning.
The October 2006 issue of Saveur named Chapel Hill, North Carolina as one of five “unsung burgs [that] really cook.” (See “The Saveur List: 5 Food Towns,” pp. 28-29). We were in good company: the others were Apalachicola, Florida (oysters, Piggly Wiggly), Ashland Oregon (wine, Dungeness crab), Burlington, Vermont (cheese, pain au levain) and Lawrence, Kansas (small batch beer, Jalisco-style tortas).
For Chapel Hill, high praise went to locally raised pork, organic veggies and handmade cheeses, and to a spate of chefs and restaurants turning out shrimp ‘n’ grits (Crook’s Corner), hickory barbecued pork shoulder (Allen & Son B-Q) and “braised Chatham County rabbit with ginger and house-cured ham.” (The Lantern). (See our local directory for Saveur’s picks, plus some of our own.)
Today the local food scene has converged in the gazebo at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market. “Nothing like a pickle for breakfast,” laughs Andrea Reusing, chef and owner of The Lantern, where local ingredients get an Asian fusion twist. Andrea is serving fresh pickles—pumpkin, kim chi and green tomatoes—made from market produce. I nod in happy agreement: The sweet crunchy organic pumpkin slices, doused in rice wine vinegar and spiced with Thai chiles and white peppercorns, could go on my plate anytime of day.
Andrea’s pickles are an upscale accompaniment to Damon Lapas’ (The Barbecue Joint) falling apart-tender smoked pork butt with traditional North Carolina red pepper-vinegar sauce zapped with fresh chopped garlic. Lapas seems mildly abashed to be serving barbecue before 10 AM, but that hasn’t deterred any of the eager market-goers who are also inhaling Bill Smith’s (Crook’s Corner) Late Summer Vinaigrette with fresh peas, corn, tomatoes, onions and bell pepper. and Shane Ingram’s (Four Square Restaurant, in Durham but that's OK) Ayrshire Farm Apple, Red Onion and Rosemary Foccacia.
The second cardinal rule of the market is to make a beeline for your favorite vendors before they sell out. But I often make one circuit to check out the scene. This is how you uncover hidden treasures: a stunning purple-leafed Bloodgood maple at an unbeatable price, for instance, or seedlings for the tiny, divinely sweet Matt’s Wild Cherry Tomatoes.
Today I’m stopping at Cane Creek Farm to get some of Eliza MacLean’s peppery heirloom pork sausage. (Eliza sells pork to The Lantern and to Savoy in New York.) Then on to Elysian Fields Farm where Elise Margolies is offering tastes of the most meltingly tender, faintly smoky pork shoulder that Kevin Callaghan at Acme Restaurant has cooked for her. It’s so good I buy a shoulder on the spot and start looking for Kevin, who’s shopping the market, to get the recipe. (Elise also runs Elysian Fields' CSA, which supplies us with lovely organic vegetables.)
In the meantime, I’m checking out the early fall organic squash and pumpkins, piles of bright peppers, late tomatoes and bunches of spiky dahlias. The delectable aroma of roasting capsicums leads me to Peregrine Farm, where customers are standing in line to have red, yellow and green Bell peppers charred in a wire drum rotating over a gas flame. My next stop is Chapel Hill Creamery where I pick up a New Moon semi-ripe Camembert-like cow’s milk cheese to go with very early green apples I spied at another stand.
And there’s Kevin walking towards me, carrying a few bags of produce and a bunch of “Oscar” milkweed, a UFO variety of asclepias with lime green lantern-like seed pods. It’s the work of a moment to get his recipe for the pork shoulder, but then we segue to a long conversation about different ways of cooking garlic and the importance of balancing the sweet and tangy flavors in the tomato-based sauce that goes with the pork.
It’s great that Saveur picked up on the Carrboro Farmers’ Market and the local food scene, but then we knew how good it was all along. Didn’t we?
For the article on Chapel Hill, see Saveur, October 2006, No. 96, “The Saveur List: 5 Food Towns,” pp. 28-29.
Carrboro Farmers’ Market, 301 West Main Street, Carrboro, NC, is open Wednesdays 3:30-6:30 PM and Saturdays 7 AM-12 PM through December 23, 2006. Telephone: 919.280.3326. Web: www.carrborofarmersmarket.com.