New Amsterdam Market

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Yesterday I visited the third meeting of the New Amsterdam Market, a project to start a permanent public market in a building at the South St. Seaport.  I volunteered there at a table that was more or less a joint endeavor between Fair Food (with which I assume the readers of this blog are familiar) and Sweet Pea Nourishment (a new, small-scale catering company sourcing local, seasonal ingredients).  I’m happy and honored that I had the chance to go, and it was a fun adventure for the foodie in me—but it was also different than I expected, and the whole market scene made for a long and crazy madhouse day. 

The market was set up under an overpass in front of the Fulton St. fish market building—and I was happy for the steel above us when it started to downpour in the middle of the afternoon!  There was a wide variety of vendors—cheesemongers, animal farmers, many bread bakers, many chefs sampling food made from local ingredients, a few farms, a NYC brewery offering birch beer and ginger ale, the Bent Spoon ice cream makers from Princeton, even a foraging older couple from Vermont!  So while I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the variety of superb and tasty food at the market, like in other public markets the emphasis seemed to be on artisan food crafters rather than the farmers I’m more accustomed to seeing at the markets I visit every day.  The great thing about the New Amsterdam Market, though, is that all the artisan producers emphasized the local foundation and sources for their food! 

Also like other public markets—certainly like Reading Terminal Market when a big convention is in town—there were hordes of people simply sightseeing and interested in free samples.  I doubt those people knew what they were seeing, but Ann Karlen (who valiantly spent the entire day sampling and portioning the cheeses we brought) thought many of the people who bought cheese from her did seem educated about the opportunity they were being offered to find all this amazing food at one market. 

From the Philadelphia region, the blueberries (the only ones at the market) and cherries were snapped up; the cheese table was mobbed also, and cheeses like the Shellbark Hollow goat chevre, the Hendricks Gruyere, the Primavera Tome, and a cheddar similar to the PA Noble were especially popular.  I spent more time around the dry goods, and the samples we offered of Tait Farms’ strawberry rhubarb conserve and (of course!) Betty’s Tasty Buttons fudge sauce met with rave reviews! 

If anyone’s curious (oh, alright, I’m just boasting), I came away from the market with some wild ginger from VT, a bottle of riesling from Long Island, ‘thunder’ pickles with garlic and hot pepper from Katchkie Farm near Albany (owned by a nifty catering company!, an enormous loaf of crusty sourdough bread from the restaurant Daniel, and honey lavender shortbread from the Milk and Cookies bakery.