grannyjanny, I love the farmer's markets here in France, when the old 'uns bring out their garden plums and peaches and apples and grapes and you see all manner of tomatoes, curved cucumbers, melons of all shapes and sizes. They are delicious and the odder the shape, the better! In Portugal I seem to remember that the market was very rudimentary and a lot of the sellers looked very poor but the produce was huge, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, courgettes and quite a lot of beans. They shared old fashioned scales with weights on them ;D needless to say the veg was so tasty.