Caveat Emptor

     Quite by accident I stumbled upon the Haymarket Square open air market on Friday afternoon as I was walking back from the Public Gardens in Boston.   It has been selling fruit, produce and fish from dawn to dusk every Friday and Saturday since the 1830's.  It has nothing of the glitz and polish of Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall and is not a tourist destination.  It isn't even listed on most of the traveler's guides of Bean Town.  But it is a favorite of immigrants and frugal Yankees alike and attracts thrifty deal seekers for miles around.



     As I strolled along the string of vendor's stalls I was amazed at the low prices.  I was even tempted to purchase some produce to take back home the next day.  The prices were easily half the cost of the chain mega marts.

 

     So how to they do it?  Well, first off Haymarket Square is not a farmers' market.  The vendors get their goods from wholesalers in Cambridge, across the Charles River.  What they sell is produce that has not been sold to the retail markets that week and needs to be cleared off their shelves to make way for new shipments arriving over the weekend.  So the wholesale people deeply discount the produce to the vendors who then truck it over to their stalls.  So it is clearly a "let the buyer beware" operation.  Is some of the fruit and produce old and tired looking?  Yes.  But with careful discrimination and a sharp eye those who shop carefully can find perfectly good food and save money at the same time.

     Now I'm not exactly sure how that works with the fish I saw on sale there...