I know I am not alone when I say that I was incredibly excited for my parents to come down and pay for a meal that didn’t consist of pizza, burgers or Jimmy John’s. My mother, being the organization obsessive and food guru that she is, did her research before she came to Dallas. Out of her notebooks came the gladly accepted favorite Mi Cocina, the newer and delicious Italian restaurant Bice and one place that completely blindsided both me and the rest of my family: the Dallas Farmer’s Market.
“It’s the best in the country,” she promised me on the way there. I sat back in my car seat sulking, having expected a fantastic expensive lunch with things like big hunks of meat and mashed potatoes. I had no past experience with Farmers’ Markets because I always used to let my parents go there and get the food that I ate at home, while I slept in on Saturday morning.
Upon arriving we came across a larger-than-life wire metal statue of a Mexican playing a guitar on the outskirts of what appeared to be a vaguely artistic junkyard. We got out of the car and walked through the airplane-hangar-sized piazza with the metal musician at the front. This place, as it turns out, will not have anything that you need, no matter what you are looking for, but it will have some of the coolest things that you will just have to buy. I found – for cheaper than a meal at Mi Cocina – an oversized purple crystal, a giant sculpture of a hippopotamus, and a life-size suit of armor.
Apart from the actual market itself, my favorite part of the entire afternoon was stopping by the stand outside the hangar and buying a 500 mL (Mexican units) Coke in a glass bottle – a rare luxury. On top of that, the same kiosk sold something called Frito Pie, which is a bag of Fritos with a serving of cheese and chili scooped in. I have never had it before, and was a bit nervous to try it that day, but I am certainly going back for it – it’s only a buck fifty!
On the other side of the artisans’ shops was an even bigger hangar full of fruit and vegetable vendors. I walked up with a grin on my face and my neck turned up looking at the three-story ceiling. The bustle of all of the vendors (farmers?) running around peddling their goods both looked and sounded like another time period altogether. In our age of hypermarkets and delivery foods, honest-to-goodness food forums seem like a completely foreign concept.
The first person I passed was a young Hispanic girl cutting up a peach with a knife. “You want some peach?” she asked me.
I did a sort of double take and smiled a “No, thank you,” both wondering why she offered and a little flattered that she did.
Next I passed a middle-aged man wearing a dirty t-shirt and big black boots who was cutting up an apricot. “Hey, man, you want some apricot? They’re really good. Come on, man, have some.” I didn’t even need to do my triple take to realize what was going on. As I looked around the room I saw that there was someone standing in front of every single vendor handing out samples of their wares. I was immediately abashed and took a slice of apricot out of humiliation.
My humiliation disappeared almost instantaneously as the apricot burst in my mouth – incredibly fresh. Unfortunately we had just had lunch at the neighboring Mexican restaurant called Dos Panchas so I wasn’t very hungry, but I realized that one could go to the Farmer’s Market and eat three full meals without paying a dime just by stopping at each one of the vendors. You could also do this guilt free because these sentries handing out samples make it seem like all they want in their life is for you to eat their fruit, whether you buy something or not. (On a side note, Dos Panchas is a delightfully authentic Mexican restaurant that is a must-visit if going to the Market).
The food that I recognized was amazing, and so was the food I didn’t – fruits like a cactus pear I didn’t even know existed before that trip. I cannot speak for the rarity or splendor of most of the items, but I have the assurance from my mother who kept shouting things like “Are those fresh Black-Eyed Peas? I can’t find fresh Black-Eyed Peas anywhere!” In other words, if you are looking for ingredients to cook with, they will certainly have the best. On the other hand, if you don’t even know how to spell cook, you can absolutely go there for a free and delicious meal.
