the dirty little secret about home-grown tomatoes at the Austin Farmers Market Sarrurday mornings

[Michael Eisenstadt]

We learn that the city charges the Farmers Market folks
$7000 per Sarrurday. limit of 45 stalls and the produce has
to come from within 150 miles of Austin.

Most of the stalls are craft fair shuck and jive
scented candles, preserves in jars, even a
Nubian stand selling genuine sugary drink from
the Sudan. And a tip jar with the promise that
all the tips go to supporting a school back home
with a picture of 2 native women spading up a
field near a river. 2 weeks ago there were 2
Sudanese, this week one Sudanese and a very
pale small white American woman.

as for produce, there are 3 or more stands
selling "homegrown" tomatoes at $3 a pound.

none of the homegrown looking tomatoes at 3
stalls had any smell (which means they will
prove to be tasteless). one of these stands had 3
different kinds of tomatoes: "homegrown"
looking, yellow and cherry. prima facie
this would seem to argue against them being
grown locally. gentleman at this stand offered
me a free cherry tomato. i ate it and it was
so bad that i needed to get the seller to
try one. he thought I wanted a second free
cherry tomato. I was able to drive home to
him that HE should eat a cherry pepper. He
did and turned his back to me so he could spit
it out. Mine had a nasty strong aftertaste
and, apparently, so did his. He said "I don't
understand."

this is in reverse chronology, the sequence
was cherry tomato, Nubian drink stand and,
finally, the very white-skinned redhead wisely
standing in the shade of the trees selling the
Socialist Worker newspaper.