The Farmers Market in Strasbourg

I absolutely love Farmer's Markets and did not know that my sister does also. I can spend hours walking up and done the aisles, taking in the fresh produce, watching people pick the perfect radish in the perfect shade of pink to go on their table that night. Travelling is one opportunity to do that, that opens the door to explore the foods of the local producers and really get a sense of what they are doing and what innovative things they are growing and making. What a better place to do it than in France. The first Saturday we were away we spent the morning at the Marche, and it was fabulous. I think that my parents were less than thrilled with the amount of time that my sister and I wanted to spend inspecting the fresh goats cheese, looking at the newly slaughtered pork, and game birds and interacting with the local shoppers. I could have spent all day and hundred of euros there!!!! Here are just a few pics from our day and some of my comments:

In the prime spot in the Market was this gentleman and his wares. He has a bunch of different things, including a small selection of veggies, and fresh baked breads, but most interesting for me were the four ages of fresh goat cheese that he had - one day old, one week old, three weeks old and hard goats cheese. He was super busy, but I wish I could have asked him how long he had been at the market to get this spot at the south entrance to the market and if he raised the goats from which he made his cheese. I wish that we had bought some of the vegetable soup as it looks so good in this pic - yummy! We had the one day old goats cheese on fresh mache lettuce for lunch that day - stunningly delicious!

There were tons of butchers and stalls selling all types of varieties of meat and meat products. I particularly was attracted to the numerous stalls that sold only Saussison Sec of all sorts of varieties. We indulged in Duck and Pork Saussison Sec which were out of this world. I thought the the photograph with them in the baskets, fir tree branches for festivities was gorgeous and captures the simplicity of the market.

We ate a lot of pate on holidays and I thought that this was a particularly beautiful pate en crute at one of the stalls. I became re-obsessed with the French Baby Radishes that you see on the left. Their colour, delicious flavour, cuteness and beauty was irresistible. We bought them a number of times over the course of the holidays. I was also intrigued by the vegetable beside the radishes that is greenish. It is a cross between a cauliflower and a broccoli. I had it at a restaurant that I ate at and quite enjoyed. I have no idea what it is called, but it was quite interesting

I think that this is lavender, however am not sure, regardless it was all over the market and beautiful.I hate nougat, but the variety that was offered was awesome.....
Cheese, cheese and more cheese. There were so many cheese stalls. As I have so many pics of cheese shops that I visited, I have posted only a few cheese pics here. I figure you will get enough of them in the next little while!


The fish mongers had so many interesting and varied types of fish. It was so cold outside that I think the fish didn't even need the ice they were sitting on!!
So Francais! About 3 minutes later these 2 little girls were ripping the end of the baguette and eating it, while their parents shopped. So adorable.