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Reading Terminal Market
The
Reading Terminal Market is located at Arch & 12th Streets |
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This page updated Sept. 20, 2003 |
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Cheddar – Love It All, Cheap or Dear
But if you want to indulge yourself, two of the market's cheese specialists, Downtown Cheese and Salumeria, provide a sufficient variety of cheddars to satisfy your cheesy dreams. Both offer intense Canadian cheddars: a $10 "rat cheese" made by Twin Oaks at Downtown and an $11.99 five-year-old extra sharp from Maple Dale at Salumeria. Medium sharpWisconsin cheddars can be had at both cheesemongers for about $6. Extra sharp cheeses tend to be a bit more expensive, ranging up to $10. Saluermia has a Vermont for $7.99, as well as a Cabot "private stock" for $10; Cabot makes its cheese from milk supplied by Vermont and, to a lesser extent, New York State cows. Most quality American cheddars come from Vermont, New York and Wisconsin, but Tillamook, an Oregon dairy cooperative, widely markets its well-made brand nationally, available at Salumeria for $7.49. English cheddars can be found at Salumeria, Downtown Cheese as well as DiBruno's shops on Ninth Street in the Italian Market and 18th Street in Center City. Green Valley Dairy sells its cave aged cheddar at its own stand on Saturdays only, but it is also carried by the Fair Food Farmstand, which is only at the market on Fridays. Green Valley's cheesemakers learned their craft from Jonathan White, founder of the former Egg Farm Dairy and now proprietor of Bobolink Farms. Fair Food also sells cheddars from Green Meadow Farm and Leraysville Cheese. If you've got macaroni and cheese in mind, or simply don't find the higher end product good value for your tastes, visit Hatfield Farms and Esh Egg Farm in the Pennsylvania Dutch section of the market (Wednesday-Saturday) for less expensive curd. Paw Paw PatchYou may know the song about Susie and what she did in the paw paw patch, but do you know to what use she put the paw paws she gathered? Paw paws are custard appples (the cherimoya is a distant relative), oblong fruits three to six inches long, green on the tree, ripening to a mottled brown/purple after picked. It is the largest edible fruit native to North America. The easiest way to enjoy their banana-mango like flavor is to cut them lengthwise and scoop out the pulp (don't eat the few black seeds you'll find) and enjoy, though it can also be turned into jam and jelly, ice cream (which you could have sampled earlier this month at the Paw Paw Festival near Athens, Ohio), chiffon pie, bread, cake, milk shakes, and zabaglione (visit the Paw Paw Foundation web site for the recipes collected by Snake Jones) and even a fruit smoothie. Earl Livengood will have them for the next week or two at the Reading Terminal on Saturdays and South & Passyunk on Tuesday afternoons. They are priced at 60 cents each, or $1.20 for a small box. Blimey! Limes Get Pricey The price has of limes as doubled as the supply has suddenly faded. Looks like we'll have to pass on late summer gin and tonics. Iovine's Produce marked them up to two for a dollar this week, the same price as Whole Foods. Some supermarkets have a slightly better price, three for a dollar, but not enough for a detour. Go for the lemons, isntead, which Iovine's is selling at 10 for a buck; they're small, and not terribly juicy, but they work Peaches Hold On. You can still have your peach and eat it, too, though only for a couple of more weeks. As expected, the quality of the crop has kept up, even this late in the local harvest. Veggie Time. Expect to see some tender greens at Earl Livengood's stand this Saturday. At Tuesday's South Street market he offered three colors of young Swiss chard and very fresh turnip greens. The signs over the bins at Iovine's still claim 10 varieties of eggplant, but I counted a mere six types earlier this week. Price is still $1.99 regardless of variety. Pome Fruits. Quinces are just beginning to show up. Iovine's offered them at $1.99 this week. L. Halteman should have them soon, too. Local Bartlett pears are readily available. Apple varieties available include the Macoun (to my taste, the archetypal apple, vibrant red exterior flecked with green and snow white flesh – indeed, is this the apple served Snow White?), crunchy to the bite, sweet and satisfying to the taste. No teacher can resist! You can get them at $1.50 a pound at the Fair Food Farmstand on Fridays, and other farmers' market vendors are likely to have them now, too. Jonathans, Cortlands, MacIntosh, Ginger Gold, and Smokehouse are other varieties in the markets. Cultured Butter. Fair Foods project has added a tasty cultured butter to its lineup. Although supplied through a small local dairy, it's actually manufactured in eastern Ohio. At $2 for eight ounces, it is competitive with the much more expensive French butters, and just as good. More Mackerel. Add John Yi's to the fishmongers selling Spanish mackerel. The Reading Terminal landmark has it for $2.99. Last week, D'Arigo's in the Italian Market offered it at a bargain price, $1.98. It was $3.99 at another Reading Terminal vendor, Kim's Seafood. Also this week, John Yi's offered Boston mackerel at $1.99, and whole farm-raised "baby" Atlantic salmon at $2.99. Last week's whole wild sockeye are gone, though filets sell for $9.99, king salmon at $10.99. The king salmon is a buck cheaper at Golden Seafood. Thick haddock filets, perfect for baking or broiling, are $3.99 at John Yi's, which also features Jersey fluke ($6.99) and flounder ($5.99) this week. Avocados. Haas avocados still a relative bargain at 99 cents each at Iovine's. Check out our guacamole recipe. Market MusingsBassetts was selected one of the nation's 10 best ice creams (and tops in the Northeast) by People magazine . . . Nicholas Cage will be running through the market when it is closed on Sunday, Oct. 12. No, he won't be looking for a good deal on apples. Instead, he will be filming a chase scene for "National Treasure," now shooting in Our Fair city . . . Market muckety-mucks are huddling again to figure out how to improve the parking situation. Using the token discount system at the Parkway garage on 12th street is about as easy as figuring out how to operate the zero-gravity toilet in the film 2001 . . . In another event aimed at increasing traffic, a flea market will be held Nov. 1 at the Arch & 12th Street parking lot. Vendors at the flea market will be screened to assure they won't compete with market merchants. |
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Unless otherwise noted, prices are per pound,
and all reports and comments are based on personal
visits. Prices, of course, are subject to wild fluctuation, and what's here
today at 49 cents may be unavailable at any price tomorrow. So don't sue me
if you don't see it at the price quoted here, because it will cost you
lawyers' fees. If you have a report you'd like to add, or any comments about the usefulness (or lack thereof) of this site, just contact me. I would particularly welcome reports on the various small farmer markets around the city and nearby suburbs. If you would like to receive an e-mail to notify you when updated reports are available, just contact me. |
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© Robert Libkind, 2003 rlibkind@yahoo.com |
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Cheddar cheese is a
commodity and a luxury. And whether it is produced with the former or
latter market in mind, it is always wholesome and tasty. Even the
supermarket brands offer excellent value. (See our