Hey there Tailgate Market Fans,
“Expensive eggs.” Those words snared my curiosity. Two middle-aged men were talking in front of the egg case at the grocery store. One was stocking the egg section with brown eggs in clear cartons, and the other was a customer. The snippets I heard went something like this:
“…got eggs from a lady …I got them for Easter eggs…They were all colors, even green.”
“Green eggs? I’ve never heard of that! Really?”
Free-Range Eggs
“Yeah green.”
“So how did they taste?”
“They were really good. Delicious.”
“And they were green?”
“Just the shells were green. I think the hens run loose.”
“Yeah, they probably taste good ’cause they’re happy chickens. You know these chickens live in little cages” (meaning the hens laying most of the grocery-store eggs) .
That’s the deal folks. Local food was being championed right there in the grocery store down the road. In the course of a passing conversation, these two men were discussing issues like taste, species diversity, and livestock living conditions ~ and even expressing awe and wonder at it all.
When we tailgate market fans buy local food, whether it’s eggs, lettuce, hearth-baked bread, or whatever; we can be pretty sure that a lot of personal time went into producing it. We get multitudes more than what we pay for at the tailgate markets. We all know the crafts are handmade, but the food & specialty items are of “handcrafted” quality too. That’s why some of the vendors use the word “artisan”. Sure, the farmers have tractors; but most of the work is done by hand. They are harvesting each head of lettuce by hand. Multiple times, they are handling each loaf of bread. Weaving the lattice homemade pie crust by hand. Planting each seed. Plucking off each collard leaf and bunching it in what is called “a hand”. They are pulling each little radish up, inspecting them as they go, and then bunching them…by hand. They’re out in their gardens harvesting homegrown herbs when the moon is right, so the herbs will shine with the utmost quality in their soaps.
And that’s only at the harvest end. What about all the preparation prior to harvest. Making the compost. Spreading the compost. Starting the plants. Grinding the flour. Feeding the goats. Buying the farm. Taking out hay on bitter winter nights…
It’s truly amazing that the farmers and producers are willing to do all this work, and then share it with us. It’s equally astounding that everything doesn’t cost a million dollars, with the amount of dedication that has gone into it. Most of it costs only the tiniest bit more than the grocery store, BUT this food has SOUL, brothers and sisters, and we all know that’s something you can’t buy no matter how much money you have. Yeah now, lemme testify to the power of L O V E.
And Amen too,
Ruth Gonzalez
Tailgate Market Fan Club 