The market is inundated with summer fruits. There are piles of strawberries and now the cherries have arrived! A few early peaches and nectarines are appearing as well a couple of cantaloupe melons…yum.
It has been over a week since I was last able to go to the market in Croix Rousse and a rare weekday off work and I was able to wander through the Tuesday market today and the changes in the produce on sale seem very dramatic.
It is lovely shopping in a seasonal market and you can get very smug and all eco friendly about it. There are some market stalls run by local producers – these are easily identifiable as the produce tends to be unwashed, limited and displayed in old wooden crates. By buying from these farmers you know that what you are getting has been locally produced and has low food miles and therefore low carbon footprints. However you do get to a point in mid February when you have been looking at the same fruit and veg for several months (potatoes, pumpkin, leeks, apples, pears and quinces) and being eco friendly isn’t so attractive.
Then suddenly there is a splash of red amongst the browns and oranges of winter and the first strawberries have arrived. OK, so they come from Spain, but that is only over the Pyrenees, what the heck and you just have to buy them.
Now the soft fruit season is really getting started. There will be cherries galore for the next few weeks, which you can even buy in various states of ripeness, as well as French kiwis (which seems an odd thing to write), strawberries and raspberries. Then as the cherry season wanes the peaches, nectarines and finally the apricots will arrive. The French still make a lot of jams and preserves and will buy kilos of fruit and the supermarkets will sell preserving kits and kilner jars. One enterprising stallholder has a clafoutis recipe written on a tatty piece of cardboard box proudly displayed next to her cherries.
Then seemingly, within a blink of an eye, it will all be over and as the weather turns cooler, pumpkins and other autumn foods will start making a reappearance and apples will seem a novelty and worth buying again.
Anyway, today I brought some cherries and I may make a clafoutis, provided I don’t eat them all first.
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