Fat organic carrots were a big seller at Tom Cornell’s stand at the inaugural winter farmers’ market at Edgewood Park on Sunday. Scores of local shoppers stopped by to purchase local food. On a sunny, cold day, with fresh snow on the ground, eight vendors set up shop in the parking lot. Cornell (pictured above on the right, with customer Jamie Volpe), who runs Riverbank Farm in Roxbury, was one of them. Volpe happily listed her purchases: “I’m buying carrots, I’m buying chickens from Stone Gardens, beef from Nunzio at Four Mile River Farm. I buy everything. I buy bread, and now that they cheese here, I’ll probably buy that, too.” One vendor had leafy greens on offer. She quickly sold out. “I’ll have to bring 30 percent more next time,” said Whitney Caporaso of Bodhichitta Farms in Prospect. She was also selling shiitake mushrooms, which are not commonly grown in the state. She said she and her husband Chris grow the mushrooms on logs, which is more labor-intensive than growing on other media. “But they’re preferred ... On the logs they pull things from the log itself that makes them more medicinal and more tasty.” She described them as more delicate in taste than other mushrooms, but “they still have a good flavor for a mushroom.” She recommended them for soups featuring miso or leeks.
“This is a very neighborhood-oriented market,” said Rachel Berg, the manager for City Seed, the non-profit that runs five summer farmers markets in New Haven and two winter markets. (The other one is in Wooster Square on the first and third Saturdays.) She said the push was on from both customers and vendors at the summer Edgewood Park market to expand to winter hours, because many of them didn’t want to travel across town to Wooster Square, and the vendors at Wooster Square (which opened its winter market several years ago) wanted another outlet for their winter crops, meat and dairy products. Not to mention more processed foods like maple syrup, tomato sauce and salad dressings (pictured) offered by Patrick Horan of Waldingfield Farm in Washington, Conn. The Edgewood market runs on the second and fourth Sundays through the winter. Berg estimated about 200 people came through on opening day. “I think it’ll get busier, especially when people get more cabin fever and want to get out of the house,” Caporaso opined. “And, as we go forward, the daylight hours are longer, people are up a little earlier, they incorporate this into their routine. This is going to be a great market. This is a great neighborhood.” New Haven leads the state in the number of winter farmers markets up and running. Statewide there are only a half dozen, but the trend is definitely upward, said Rick Macsuga, marketing rep for the Connecticut Department of Agriculture. Another indication of growth is a $37,000 grant just awarded to the Connecticut chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Organization by the U.S.D.A. to promote local winter crops. Measures include extending the growing season through the use of plastic tunnels and learning how to store summer-grown crops such as squash, potatoes, onions, garlic, dried beans, turnips, rutabagas, carrots, beets, parsnips ... exactly the kinds of items for sale at the Edgewood market on Sunday.
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