The Santa Monica Farmers' Market Cookbook
Seasonal Foods, Simple Recipes, and Stories from the Market and Farm
by Amelia Saltsman
Why do some people turn up their noses at microwaveable meals yet proudly help themselves to packaged vegetables, frozen meat and fruit so processed that it might as well be made of wax? That’s the question Amelia Saltsman raises in The Santa Monica Farmers’ Market Cookbook as she tries to give the grower a more prominent position in the food chain that leads from field to kitchen to table. Rather than treating ingredients as items that appear magically in the supermarket’s frozen foods aisle, Saltsman emphasizes the men who supply the meat, the dames who do dairy, the people behind the produce. In fact, the majority of the book’s too-few photographs are of the farmers, not the food.
The Santa Monica Farmers’ Market is one of the oldest in California, and Saltsman begins her book by introducing readers to some of the people who’ve been selling their wares there for decades. She also offers helpful tips on how to get the most out of a trip to a farmers’ market, stressing seasonal and spontaneous shopping. “Look at what’s available,” she advises. “If it’s not there, it’s not in season or locally grown”—and seasonal, locally grown food is what this is all about. So, “if you find something amazing, buy it on the spot and change your cooking plans.”
Once you’ve got your ingredients in hand, the next step Saltsman seeks to guide you through is preparing them in such a way as to display their natural full flavor. Her recipes aren’t what you’d suspect from stereotypical farm cooking; far from heavy or homey, if anything, these dishes veer toward the austere. Still, some would say it’s a gift to be simple, and the meal we cooked up certainly felt like a present. The Rustic Eggplant-Tomato Bake produced a delightful combination of creamy eggplant and juicy tomato with a great garlic kick. The Roast Pork Loin with Red Currants and Provençal Herbs tasted fresh and succulent, while the accompanying vegetables cooked to melt-in-your-mouth perfection. Meanwhile, dessert really took the cake. The wonderfully tart Plum Crisp with Cornmeal Topping evoked the last days of summer and the chillier months to come with its three varieties of fresh plums and the tangy hint of crystallized ginger.
All of the recipes were simply explained and easy to follow, and while some of the ingredients were difficult to find, even with the rich bounty of a farmers’ market at our disposal, Saltsman was good at offering workable substitutions. Although the book is more like a handy how-to pamphlet than an alluring, full-color brochure, the essence of the farmers’ market philosophy is evident in the food. Fresh, healthy, evocative of the seasons and of the earth: you’ll know you’re eating meals that have never been touched by the icy finger of the freezer.
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