“Playing With Your Food” is a weekly post highlighting a few of the many great uses for the wide range of produce and artisan food at the Salem Farmers’ Market, a Salem Main Streets project. The Salem Farmers’ Market takes place every Thursday from June 12 to October 23 from 3 pm to 7 pm on Derby Square. While we can never predict exactly what our farms will be able to bring each week, we do our best to reflect some of the fun items we’ve found recently and what’s likely to be available for the upcoming week. Hopefully this will give you a few new ideas to play with, and inspire you to try some new things at the market.
The fall weather is upon us! For many people, that means baking, roasting, and other warm, aromatic tasks. As for me, I pickle. Now, I understand that most people do their pickling and preserving in the summer, but much like the grasshopper in the fable, I am sometimes too happy enjoying my fresh produce during the summer to plan ahead for the winter. But with the first crisp in the air, I suddenly panic about all the wonderful produce I’ll be missing in January and start pickling everything in sight.
That said, I’m unreasonably suspicious about my ability to can pickles. I don’t actually trust myself and refuse to believe that they’ve sealed correctly. For this reason, I tend to stick with fridge pickles, where no canning is required – but it does mean that they’re not “shelf stable” so you’ll be sacrificing fridge space. Here are a few of our favorites: