Ode to the Santa Monica Farmers Market
Ode to the Santa Monica Farmers Market
Los Angeles’s multiculturalism is less a melting pot than a meze platter. In the city’s expansiveness, communities carve out their own territory—you don’t necessarily have to mingle with your neighbors. You can drive down blocks in the San Gabriel Valley, home to over half a million Asian Americans, and not see a single sign in English. The same is true in Boyle Heights, a community in East LA that is 94 percent Latino.
But on Wednesday mornings, at the farmers’ market in downtown Santa Monica (@smfms), a table of herbs reads like a census of the city. Korean and Japanese varieties of shiso share table space with Mexican, Greek, Italian, and Syrian oreganos; rau ram, huacatay, and Persian mint are there, too. Thai grandmothers line up early for the best water spinach, and French expats tear up at the sight of a mirabelle plum. I’ve seen a Oaxacan minister from Gardena buy a dolly’s worth of chilacayote for his agua fresca side business. And then there are the chefs and produce buyers hunting for the rare and the seasonal, injecting enough cash into the farmers’ coffers to convince them they should drive back the next week and do it all over again.
From “How to Do the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market” by Gillian Ferguson for Lucky Peach, 2016; Photo by Larry on Flickr
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