Richmond, in western Contra Costa County, is one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s poorest communities, with a per capita income below $20,000. This 21-year-old farmers market, which was established to provide the community with otherwise unavailable fresh produce, is not a place to find pricey gourmet items. According to market manager Al Del Simone, the location was chosen for its proximity to senior centers, to serve “poor people who need cheap food.” The market, run by the Richmond Certified Farmers Market Association, has one of the lowest barriers to entry for farmers, charging just $25 for each 12-foot stall space. Many of the vendors are immigrants who bring produce familiar to Richmond’s ethnically diverse population.

The market officially opens at 11 a.m., but many vendors arrive and set up by 6 a.m., and their customers arrive almost as early for the best selection. Occasionally craft vendors will show up, and Del Simone will rent them stall space, but they seldom return more than twice. The Richmond market’s customers come for basics, not knick-knacks, he says.  Del Simone, who is a certified master gardener through the University of California Cooperative Extension Service, also dispenses gardening and pest-control tips, and in the spring, sometimes brings vegetable seedlings he’s started at home and gives them away.

The perfume of many different varieties of apples surrounded Martin Lambert’s stall. Lambert, an 82-year-old farmer from Sonoma County’s Sebastapol, brought 13 different varieties of apples today, and is selling all of them for $1.50 per pound. 

Lambert, a World War II veteran, has been farming in Sonoma County since 1947. He started with prunes and pears, but found he could make better money with apples. “I could see as soon as I started going to farmers markets that apples were what sold. I knew a good thing when I saw it, so I started planting apple trees,” he said. He kept expanding the number of varieties he offered because customers who had grown up in other parts of the country started requesting the kinds of apples they’d known back home. Lambert was busy Friday, with many customers buying apples for pies they planned to serve at Thanksgiving dinner. He also brought one crate of tomatillos, and a few acorn and butternut squash, but clearly apples were what the customers wanted.

Lee Produce, run by a Hmong farmer from Fresno, took up four stall spaces with its wide range of offerings.  Lee sold two different kinds of sweet potatoes, five different kinds of eggplants, lemon grass, baby bok choi large white daikon, two kinds of small very hot chilies, green onions and giant heads of gai choi (Chinese mustard cabbage), which several customers said takes longer to cook than many other greens but is worth the effort.  Lee Produce did not post the prices for any of its produce.

Schlewitz Family Farms of Sanger, California brought three varieties of vinifera grapes for $1.50 per pound: crimson, black moro and Thompson. They also had plums at $1.50 per pound, field grown tomatoes for $1.25 per pound, and bags of navel oranges at 10 pound for $4.

BL Producers of Fresno brought a wide range of Asian vegetables, including several unusual smooth and prickly melons, and five different varieties of eggplants for $1 a pound. Some of the small green eggplants are used in Thai curries.

Paredez Farms from Visalia brought both the flat fuyu persimmons, and the pointed hachiya variety, Satsuma oranges, and navel oranges. Hachiyas were 80 cents per pound, and the fuyus were selling for $1 per pound. Sweet Satsuma oranges, some of the first of the season, were four pounds for $5 and navel oranges were 60 cents per pound.

Assorted Varieties of Eggplant

I brought home an assortment of five different kinds of eggplants from BL Producers.  I cut the long slender eggplant in half, brushed them with olive oil and garlic and grilled them, together with the bell peppers I bought from Busalacci Farms. I peeled all the rest of the eggplants, cut them into cubes and made a huge batch of caponata, which is a Sicillian relish. Here is my recipe for caponata.

Price: $1/lb.

Cranberry Beans

I used these cranberry beans to make a hearty Italian vegetable soup called ribollita.

Price: $1.50/lb.

Apples

One of each of Lambert’s 13 varieties of apples came home with me to become an open-faced apple tart with pine nuts and a whole wheat crust. The tart was lightly sweetened, and, to my surprise, each variety of apple maintained a distinctive taste and texture after baking.

Price: $1.50/lb.

Hachiya (rear) and Fuyu Persimmons

I bought three fuyu and three hachiya persimmons from Paredez Farms. The pointed hachiya are still ripening on the counter and will be eaten out of hand when they get squishy soft.  I cut the fuyus into chunks and added them to a winter salad made from baby arugula, scallions, avocado, and blue cheese crumbles.

Price: $.80/lb. Hachiyas
$1/lb. Fuyus

I bought some very ripe tomatoes and onions, and used half for the caponata and half for a batch of ribollita, which is a Tuscan-style bean soup I made using cranberry beans I also bought from Busalacci.

Price: $1 for 4 peppers
$.75/lb. for tomatoes
$1 for 3 lbs. for onions