Luxembourg Farmers' Market

It’s a chilly mid-March Wednesday morning in the Place Guillaume--one of Luxembourg City’s two downtown squares. Like many squares in Europe, it’s a large flat expanse of granite cobblestone surrounded by old buildings and punctuated with occasional monuments. Place Guillaume, often empty except for strolling tourists and the more industriously-moving members of Luxembourg’s workforce, this morning is inundated with white tents and assorted vans and trucks. The reason for the hubbub (and our presence) is the city’s farmers’ market, which takes place every Wednesday and Saturday morning. 

I have long been a fan of farmers’ markets, though mostly for the spectacle and for wonderfully fresh produce. This started to change to a moral imperative over the years, especially after I started reading about our food supply. Two recent standouts that influenced me greatly were: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (2005), and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2007). This morning’s dual goal, and the reason I seek out farmers’ markets, is to get high-quality food and to support local, sustainable farming.

It’s not quite nine o’clock, and the market looks pretty slow. The pace will pick up later in the morning as grocery shoppers start to arrive, and especially around lunchtime, as downtown workers invade the square for sandwiches, baked goods and freshly roasted chickens. The weather is a little strange and strangely uplifting. It is brightly sunny, yet the sky is spitting tiny raindrops, though only intermittently. It’s just a few seconds of spatter now and again, more like standing in the bow of a fast moving sailboat than a rainstorm. The brilliant sun is tempered with a chilly west wind somehow gusting its way into the square.

We encounter the Place d’Armes first, a town square surrounded by restaurants, that features a band stage in the center. Heading toward the southeast corner of Place d’Armes and through a short tunnel, we arrived in Place Guillaume. 

As Tennyson might have remarked, you know spring is in the air when a young pigeon’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Mr. Romeo Pigeon is romancing Miss Juliet Pigeon. I’m half embarrassed to watch where this is going, until I notice the handful of farmers behind a nearby counter also watching, with nothing better to do. Like Christopher Walken as “The Continental” on Saturday Night Live, Romeo will not be denied. There’s a lot of cooing and strutting, as one might find in one of the local nightclubs on a Friday night. Then he makes his move. A lot of flapping ensues and a few feathers actually fly. But Juliet is having none of it, and successfully rebuffs the advances of her paramour. She grabs her pigeon purse, gets out her get-mad money and heads home. Or wherever young, single pigeon maidens go after a date gone awry.

With the drama over, the sellers now go back to whatever they were doing. They look more peaceful than bored, enjoying the sun. Here and there, one calls out, “Moyen!” to a scarce shopper. This “good morning” in Letzebourgish usually elicits the same response. The rest of the conversation is most often in German. Sometimes in Letzebourgish, sometimes in French.

Rolling over to the pastry cart, I buy a bag of beignets. Dusted with powdered sugar, they are chewier than American donuts and not quite as sweet. The dough is twisted into knots the size of a baby’s fist and baked instead of fried. The beignets keep Rebecca happy; she clutches a pastry in one hand and her ladybug doll (“Lady Dotty”) in the other. Behind the counter there are all kinds of “bio” breads, the European designation for organic foodstuffs. I eschew the sensible loaves and chew on an irresponsible beignet.

Next stop is the chicken vendor. This pleasant young woman has dozens of slowly-roasting whole birds rotating vertically on a rotisserie. The smell is overwhelmingly delicious. Surprisingly, I am able to walk right up to the counter. I’ve been here at 11 o’clock when the line for chicken runs twenty deep, and you have to search your soul to determine how badly it wants freshly roasted chicken. Depositing my chicken in my shopping bag, it takes most of my willpower to not tear a drumstick off and chew as I walk.

The apple stall is always alluring. I always buy the bottles of freshly squeezed apple juice when I find them. The juice taste so alive and delicious. The plastic bottle she hands me is recycled; it once held bottled water that the apple farmer likely bought at a grocery store. And rather than place it empty into her recycle bin at home, she has placed it full of apple juice into my shopping bag, and earned three Euros for her trouble. She gives Rebecca a Boskoop apple. Becca hands me Lady Dotty, clutches the apple in one hand and the beignet in the other, alternating bites.

I am sorely tempted by the cheese vendor. He is still hefting huge wheels of cheese onto his stall table and setting up his display. But he has his sampling knife ready and offers me a slice of what looks like Leerdammer. Picturing the half dozen cheeses in the refrigerator at home, I decline politely. We both know he is there to sell cheese and not feed the masses over light conversation. I’ve bought from him before, and will again. Just not today.

When I come to this market, it seems like my shopping bag is always bigger than my stomach. The temptation is to buy more produce than I can possibly cook before they start to wilt. With this in mind, I steel my determination and only buy two gorgeous eggplants at the next vegetable stall, even though I really want to get some kohlrabi, artichokes, celery root, delicate little Belgian endives not much larger than okra, and some curly green vegetable possibly related to frisee. I imagine it must be wonderful to be a chef who devises every evening’s menu based on what is available at the market. Is there such a thing as veggie lust?

I’ve been looking for my favorite goat sausage and honey vendor, but she isn’t here today. For the last few months, one of my favorite breakfasts has been to saw slices of bread off of a nice, crusty loaf from one of the local bakers. Then I toast them, slather on some very local butter (I can see the dairy from our apartment) and local honey from the market.

Notice the operative word “local”? It makes a huge difference, especially with some products. I know the dates and oranges at the market didn’t come from here, and I am okay with that. But honey is like oysters, fresh herbs and tea--it picks up evil-intentioned chemicals fairly readily. I have long bought my honey at farmers’ markets, even before the recent expose in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about tainted Chinese honey that is illegally relabeled and sold dirt cheap in U.S. supermarkets. In Seattle this meant special trips to Pike Place Market or the University District Farmers’ Market. Local honey doesn’t blow my budget and it tastes noticeably better than the mass market brands such as Sue Bee and its ilk.

There are many other sellers I haven’t mentioned. A couple fishmongers display a decent North Sea catch. Really cheap mushrooms can be found at the mushroom stand. There are egg sellers and a group of older women who make and sell fruit jams. Walking past the flower vendors, I am tempted by tulips, but I have only one shopping bag that is now nearly full with fruit, vegetables and bread. It’s time to walk home and get that chicken ready for lunch.

If there is a moral to this rambling story, it’s that wherever you are, there is local and sustainable food, most readily found at farmers’ markets. I happen to be in Luxembourg, and am blessed with abundant local food choices. Whether you realize it or not, you are likely similarly blessed.