Today in South Woodham Ferrers there was the twice monthly farmers market. Have been to a couple of farmers markets in the past, but have been disappointed, my problem has always been I compare them to the pannier market in my wonderful Barnstaple, and there is no comparison :'(. However, that said, this one was excellent. Small and compact, but plenty to see and buy. Herbal plants, venison, sausages, smoked meats, bakers and cakes, smoked fish, home made soap, home made fudge :P, pickles, fruit and veg, apple lady, pie man, fungi, freerange organic chooks, goats milk products, eggs galour and carpentry. Something for everyone and my feeble tenner went within minutes of arriving! All these people are relatively local, I think the furthest afield was the sausage man who came up from West Sussex. The atmosphere was friendly and welcoming and I will be patronising this market again!
Really my plug is to say, if you are able to use local produce, the use it. So many of these small holders rely on markets to keep going and the goods they produce are wonderful and they are experts in their field and can bore you rigid with their in depth description of how the goats are milked! ;)
Tonight for tea we are on wild boar sausages from West sussex, red onion marmalade from locally grown red onions, fried quails egg from a local supplier, mash spuds from Essex grown spuds and kales and bacon, kale from my plot, bacon from, yup, you guessed it, Essex!
Room for one more EJ ? Better make that 2, can't leave OH at home.
Ely (Cambs) have a decent Farmers market as well.
Bring a nice bottle of red and I will get the gooseberry tart out of the freezer for pud! :P ;D
We wholly support  'small' people, 'cash in hand', but as I mentioned before, why do ours charge twice as much for sprouts 'on the vine' - involving nothing more than one slash - as for pulled & stripped ones??
I DO find that it is helpful, at least once, to note down each £/lb as you go. And compare. You go through SO much cash without being conscious of it. Mostly it may be worth the money but, sometimes, it is not.
And the temptation to believe that most produce is free-range or organic is often misplaced. DO ASK! And seek proof.
And check the source - some stalls are buying-in bulk food from outside growers & offering it under their 'label'.
But I'm still a sucker for the markets!
I do appreciate that Tim, and I am careful to check. I also know what you mean about the sprouts. I was amazed at Christmas time to watch people snapping up sprouts on the stem for double the price of the loose, and the loose were all left and ignored!
I get my veg delivered, which is fantastic value. I hate using the supermarket and we use the two farmers markets we get locally. We hardly ever eat meat at home because I don't like buying supermarket meat and we can't often afford nice meat. Better to have good quality not very often though. I have tried to give up the supermarket altogether, but find it really hard now my girls don't go in a pushchair to traipse around town getting everything.
I always buy veg now once a week on my trip to the local farm shop. It was lovely last week, a woman was obviously taking her friend round for the first time, who was exclaiming with amazement things like "it's so much cheaper than Sainsburys". I think there's another convert!
The only farmers' market near me is a French farmers' market. Not much good if you want to buy local! And bloody expensive too. We really need to move further out of London!
We go to the brilliant market in Salisbury, and up here we go to Foxbury Farm for meat and other stuff (including veg)- all locally produced AND far cheaper than the supermarkets for much higher quality. I'm a market fan!
I really must get to one of the Thames Valley ones. Drive past one on a saturday occasionally on the way to the in-laws. Should make the effort to stop!
www.tvfm.org.uk (http://www.tvfm.org.uk) for those in the Thames valley