even kumquats

This morning I discovered something marvelous. The Noodermarkt, an outdoor market two blocks from my new flat, becomes an organic food market on Saturdays. While there are about a dozen outdoor markets around Amsterdam – specializing in everything from antiques to clothes to vegetables to books – this is the only organic food market. Vendors sell the whole pantry: jars of strawberry preserves, stacks of ripening cheeses, loaves of grainy breads, bottles of fresh squeezed apple juice, bags of dried pinto beans, mountains of mushrooms. Owing to my lack of familiarity with the metric system, I managed to spend four dollars on ten small clementines, but other than that it was quite successful. I also brought home broccoli, bananas, and a thick biography of Thomas Huxley. (There's also a book vendor.)

Up to this point I regret to admit that I have been doing much of my shopping at Albert Hein, a chain of generic, overpriced, and generally unpleasant grocery stores. Chain stores are not an Amsterdam phenomenon, and Albert Hein is the glaring exception: somewhere in every neighborhood is the glowing blue AH sign. I hate to shop there, but it was always the easy way out. Albert Hein is open late, the prices are clearly marked, and they are Amsterdam’s version of one-stop shopping. But of course, this all comes at a price. The produce is bleak and far too well traveled, the cheeses are bland and mass-produced, and the vast majority of food is buried under several layers of packaging.

I don’t know yet where Amsterdam gets most of its food. The Netherlands is suffering the same pressures on agricultural land as most developed nations, and much of the remaining ag land is devoted to flower bulbs. Though the Noordermarkt looked like Eugene’s Saturday Market or Union Square’s Greenmarket, the vendors here did not always appear to be the growers.

But mmmmm. Fresh broccoli. Non-Chiquita bananas. Ten kinds of apples.