Markets offer social opportunities to bump into neighbors and to meet your local growers. If you ask farmers when they are not too busy, they may share their recommendations for preparing vegetables that are new to you or suggest deals and
Many large markets may have activities such as live music, kids activities, or offer educational opportunities like cooking demonstrations. Instead of rushing back to the car, bring a blanket or chair and enjoy the entertainment while snacking on baked goods or other foods sold by the vendors.
You can even bring family and friends along to turn your weekly market trip into a game with mini challenges, such as:
- Pretend to be on a cooking show. Purchase a mystery ingredient from the market and challenge your buddies to incorporate it into a dish or add it to an existing recipe. Alternatively, pick an item you know nothing about and challenge yourself.
- Before you go, search for authentic recipes featuring various cultural flavors, and see who can locate as many ingredients as possible at the market.
- See who can most closely predict when a particular seasonal fruit or vegetable makes its annual appearance at the market.
- Spot ingredients that farmers have bundled together and purchase the bundle as a recipe starter kit.
- Ask vendors about a new fruit or vegetable they have started selling.
- Gather ingredients from the market and give them to someone as a gift along with the recipe.
- Travel to a market new to you to look for regional differences or visit a farmers market while you’re on vacation. If you visit Washington, D.C., you could attend a VegU program by the USDA to learn how to pick, prepare and store your market finds (or find excerpts from previous programs online).
Children can enjoy their own challenges too, such as making their own fruit and veggie bingo card to use the next time they visit the market. This scavenger hunt from SNAP-Ed can be printed out or played from a mobile device. Kids may also enjoy doing a color hunt to find all of the colors of the rainbow in the produce and snapping a picture of each. Allowing children to select produce for a recipe of their choice or picking different varieties of the same veggie to do a taste test may increase their interest in trying new foods.
With these ideas and more, discover more fun on your next trip to the market.
