Crescent City Farmers Market
Crescent City Farmers Market is an agricultural market in New Orleans, Louisiana. Started as a single weekly farmers market in 1995, it is now a rotating series of markets spaced in neighborhoods throughout the city.
Early market development
The French and later the Spanish colonial governments followed these European practices in New Orleans. Under the French, market activity began on the levee, where ships would dock at the riverbank and sell produce, meat, and other provisions in the open-air.In 1779, soon after the Spaniards assumed control of New Orleans, they constructed the city's first market building, thus putting an end to the practice of the levee-street corner markets. While protecting consumers from high prices and poor quality food, the establishment of the French Market also provided the Spanish government with increased control over local commerce.
From this, a network of municipal public markets was born. It survived numerous administrations: Spanish, American, Confederate, and lastly American. It thrived throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. By the First World War, there were thirty-two markets scattered throughout the city, with at least one in every neighborhood.
Market culture
With names like Memory, Suburban, Le Breton, Lautenschlaeger, Prytania, and Tremé, the markets not only served as economic engines in their neighborhoods, but also reflected the cultural dynamics of the neighborhoods and the metropolitan area. At the end of the nineteenth century, immigration through the port of New Orleans matched that of New York and San Francisco in sheer numbers and diversity. For many immigrants, the public market provided them with an entry point into the economy as small-scale entrepreneurs. Many of the city's corner groceries and food processors began as stalls at the public markets. Shoppers would have to be prepared to conduct business in many languages. The prevailing languages were French, Creole Patois, various African languages, English, Spanish, German, Gaelic, Choctaw, Greek, Maltese, and Italian. Stall rents were low and shoppers were plentiful. Cheesemongers, fishmongers, butchers, and greengrocers provided New Orleans shoppers with basic necessities – calas tout chauds, pralines, estomac mulâtre, filé powder, and po' boy sandwiches.Sicilian truck farmers from St. Bernard Parish carted in crops like creole artichokes, tomatoes, garlic, and fava beans. Hunters would bring in everything from raccoons, bears, and possums to songbirds. Coastal fishermen – many originally from the Canary Islands, China, and Croatia – would market oysters, shrimp, crawfish, and a wide selection of fish. Painter John James Audubon noted in his journal his surprise at finding “a Barred Owl, cleaned and exposed, for sale at twenty-five cents.”
Over time, the spin-off businesses from the markets began to circulate throughout the city. For residents who could not get to market, they could purchase yard fresh eggs, strawberries, milk, and prepared foods like fried oysters right from their doorsteps. Roving street vendors would make regular rounds through neighborhoods, singing songs announcing their products, while others offered services, like scissors grinding, chimney sweeping, and tin smithery.