Fresh Food and Fresh Faces

The search for fresh, affordable produce has lured many away from mega-chain stores and out into the fresh air markets. Even Beverly Hills has a farmer’s market but my favorite is the Hollywood Farmer’s Market that stretches from Hollywood Blvd. to Sunset down Ivar St. If you don’t want to go out and catch your dinner yourself, the Hollywood farmer’s market is the ideal place to go. Like a microcosm of the city itself you can find an abundant variety of foods available there. 

The overwhelmingly delicious smell of fresh peaches mingles with that of freshly cut herbs and fresh baked bread. There are figs and dates still attached to the branches they grew on, grapes of every variety, Japanese melons, Dragon fruit, Ambrosia cantaloupe, rhubarb, passion fruit, honey, apples, oranges, lemons and nuts.

There is a regular cornucopia of vegetables such as mushrooms, onions, garlic, beans of every variety, squash flowers, varicolored potatoes and an overwhelming choice of tomatoes.  There are Peruvian hot peppers, dandelion greens, watercress and cups of raw cane juice. Clover sprouts and mung bean sprouts, rye, pinto and black bean sprouts, fluffy mix, pea greens, and wheat grass sprouts are ripe for the picking.

Potted herbs are available to plant or freshly cut and ready to cook with. There is oregano and basil to season Italian food. Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme bringing back memories of yesterday and are revamped and updated to fit today. Tarragon, lemon verbena, sweet lime, mint, dill and cilantro are just a few of the varieties displayed. There is lavender tea, licorice tea, sage tea, sage incense, bath salts, scented soap and potpourri.

Flowers make a colorful splash with marigolds, daises, gladiolas, and roses intermingled with giant clover thistles and bamboo plants.

If you’re not a vegetarian there is bison meat. Quail eggs, brown eggs and white eggs are fresh from the farm. There are oysters, clams and fish of every variety on ice. There is organic apple wood to flavor BBQ and fresh made pasta to cook with tomatoes. There is Jersey cheese and goat cheese straight from the farm.

Bands play at each end of the market and interspersed between the booths. With a country string band at one end, a Greek band at the other, African drums, Indian music and the occasional acoustic guitar player, music permeates the air.

Prepared foods are many, with the Kim Chi seller next to the bagel joint. Mango crepes and gourmet tacos standing side by side with the potato nacho vender. West African food is across from Greek. Rotisserie chicken and a mobile gourmet coffee bar share the corner.

Hand made jewelry stalls, some traditional and some not are abundant, with serapes and rugs across from flowered crosses, stars of David and ankhs sharing the same table. Hand thrown pottery and gorgeous wooden bowls are available along with every wooden utensil you could ever possibly want.

The individuals strolling the aisles are as varied as the produce exhibited. An old man using ski poles for canes makes his way past a young man in a black skull T-shirt with a mowhawk pushing a baby stroller. A young lady in spiked heels and sundress strolls past a much pierced and tattooed young man in pirate punk atire reading out loud from Ms. Piggy’s cookbook at the library cookbook fund raiser stall.

From the Iron Chef to Hell’s Kitchen people are fascinated and entertained by food. Food is everywhere, from the ancient world of Rome to the fantasy world of J. R. R. Tolkien, from earth to outer space the appreciation of food is a universally understood, universally appreciated, universally shared experience. One of the seven deadly sins being eating too much food, a much greater sin is not sharing when others don’t have enough. Food doesn’t have to be fancy or huge in portion to comfort, it doesn’t have to be healthy to be appreciated. If we are what we eat than Americans are quite multifaceted with enough variety and depth to keep boredom at bay for quiet a while.

Although Jonathan Swift would have gone hungry at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market, John Belushi probably would have found it a bit boring and Kermit’s nephew was safe for the moment, it’s wonderfully refreshing, exhilarating and inspirational to see so many different and unique varieties of food, music, hand made goods and people in one place at one time. The only offering missing was a good bottle of wine to enhance our dinner giving it that perfect touch, fine food, fine wine and fine companionship always bring. We may not always be at the top of the food chain but we certainly know how to eat and how to make even finding ingredients for a meal an experience to remember.