Early Fall Finds | September 19, 2022

Fresh & Local:

Early Fall Finds

Fall is on its way! While we eagerly await the return of the early-autumn crops and their vendors, let us not forget the often overshadowed, but delicious seasonal fruits of September - muscadines and persimmons. Sweet and seeded with a slightly heartier skin, the muscadine is a true superfood full of grape flavor and heart-healthy antioxidants. Traditionally made into wine or jelly, muscadines can be enjoyed fresh but also freeze well, allowing you to save the season and preserve their nutritional value. Persimmons—which look a bit like a tomato and can be eaten raw, dried or cooked—are high in fiber and packed with vitamins and minerals that can give your body a boost. Just as important, persimmons are delicious! Wait until they ripen to a pudding-like consistency, when persimmons have a beautifully delicate, honey-like flavor with a cantaloupe quality to it, both in color and sweetness.

In addition to muscadines and persimmons, during this seasonal transition we continue to enjoy summer squash, okra, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and welcome the first of leafy greens and autumn produce such as cushaw squash. Considered to be one of the South’s rarest and best kept secrets, the cushaw squash has a meaty but tender light orange/yellow flesh with a sweet and mild flavor. Simple to break down and puree, it makes a delicious substitute for traditional pie pumpkins plus its silvery seeds are great for roasting. Wow, is it nearly pumpkin pie time already?! These changes in market remind us fall is just around the corner!

Picks of the Week:

A Greener New Orleans

Urban agriculture is an important strategy for mitigating and adapting to the climate crisis, which is disproportionately affecting New Orleans. SPROUT NOLA, The Greater New Orleans Growers Alliance (GNOGA), and New Orleans Food Policy Action Council (FPAC) have teamed up to advocate for A Greener New Orleans 2022, a policy campaign to change growing food in the city from ‘allowed’ to encouraged.

Trees and vegetation improve air quality and mitigate the effects of global heating. Supporting urban growers who tend to these greenspaces helps sustain the environmental health of the city. To learn more about the proposed policy changes and to sign the petition, click here. You can also support urban agriculture by visiting SPROUT NOLA’s table at our Thursday Mid-city market, where you will find fresh products and produce from New Orleans growers.

Celebrating National
Fruits and Veggies Month!

September brings with it cooler air and National Fruits and Veggies Month! This timing is perfect because some of our favorite produce is coming back to market this month. The end of the hottest part of summer graces us with fresh and leafy greens, juicy fruits, and a wider variety of produce. Regularly incorporating some fruits and vegetables into your meals not only increases the amount of vitamins and nutrients you consume, but also has been shown to improve your general sense of well-being!

Did you know that locally-grown produce often has more nutrients than produce that has traveled long ways to your plate? Studies show that some types of fruits and vegetables actually decrease in nutritional value the longer they travel. This is one of many reasons we work so hard to make it easier to access fresh, local food! One of the ways we do this is through Market Match, a program that doubles SNAP dollars so shoppers can purchase more fruits and veggies! To learn more about Market Match and our other food access programs, check out our website!

National Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month Book Picks

Celebrate and honor Hispanic/Latinx heritage this month with a good book! Those interested in agriculture should check out Campesino A Campesino: Voices from Latin America's Farmer to Farmer Movement for Sustainable Agriculture, which is about the grassroots, farmer-led sustainable agriculture movement developing in Latin America over the last three decades. Or, explore Hispanic/Latinx heritage using your tastebuds by following the recipes in A Taste of Latin America, which features culinary traditions and classic recipes from Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, and more. For the kiddos, of course we recommend At the Farmers Market/En El Mercado, a Spanish and English book to teach kids about fruits and vegetables they could find on shopping trips to the grocery store and the farmers market.

If you’re shopping for our book recs online, please consider using the AmazonSmile program. Select “Marketumbrella Org” as your supported charity when shopping through smile.amazon.com and Amazon will donate 0.5% of your eligible purchases to Market Umbrella and the Crescent City Farmers Markets, at no cost to you.

Join us for a Salsa Social!

Come join us for not one, not two, but THREE days of salsa goodness as we sample and savor a variety of salsa mixes! In honor of National Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month, we will be sampling the numerous salsa options available in-market from vendors Isabel and Miguel Mendez—best recognized among shoppers for their breakfast burritos and traditional Mexican tamales. Participants will be able to sample Isabel's numerous salsa selections alongside their perfectly crispy tortilla chips. Salsa tastings will be held during the Thursday, September 22 Mid-city market; Sunday, September 25 City Park market; and Tuesday, September 27 Uptown market. We hope to see you there!

Vendor of the Week:

SPROUT NOLA

Welcome back SPROUT to Thursday market! More than a market vendor, SPROUT NOLA works tirelessly to support established and developing urban farmers in the community. Providing technical and social support to build a stronger, more equipped community of growers here in New Orleans, SPROUT’s unique Truck Farm Table serves as an entry to markets for small-scale farmers and producers to sell their goods and retain their profits. Managed by Erica Sage (who you may recognize from Tuesday market as the urban farmer and business owner of Petit Jardin), the Truck Farm Table provides shared rent and table space to small producers who might not have the volume of product to fill a whole market stall or finances to foot the whole bill or have enough time on hand to attend markets, thereby reducing barriers to entering the market. Their Truck Farm Table is often the fist step for growers hoping to scale up, and SPROUT supports the development of small and/or new producers to graduate to their own vendor stall within the CCFM markets and on to CSAs or wholesale to our restaurant shoppers or local distributors. The small growers of today are tomorrow’s anchor produce vendors. Together, SPROUT and CCFM are helping to support small growers and create a pipeline to success! Find SPROUT at market every Thursday, with products and produce from VEGGI Farmers Co-Op, River Queen Greens, Petit Jardin & Momma D’s Preserves.

Recipe of the Week:

Blueberry and Mint Lemonade

There is no drink more refreshing than this blueberry and mint lemonade! Enjoying this concoction over ice is our current favorite way to beat this beginning of fall heat. Make enough to share or size the recipe down for a single icy treat! Any way you try it, you’ll love it!

All you need to make this delicious beverage are blueberries, mint, a little bit of lemon juice, sugar, and water! If you don’t have a blender, don’t be afraid to smash your ingredients together––it’ll get the job done just fine.

What’s your favorite dish to make after visiting the Crescent City Farmers Market? Share your recipes with us on Instagram or Facebook and it might be featured in our weekly newsletter!