Tales from the Farmer's Market

Returning to an Epic Foodie Paradise

A few days ago, my kids and I were reminiscing about our homeschool days— with their slower pace, backyard lizard cages, and Mennonite math books. Our life was markedly different from the life we live now. As a case in point, we trekked across town to the Dekalb Farmer’s Market (DFM) every Friday at 9:30, after a bit of school—all six kids, including the nursing infant and blanket-throwing toddler.

We used two grocery carts and a stroller to divide and conquer; my 8 and 12-year olds teamed up to shop for bread, meat and dairy, and I would handle produce and pantry items with my four other “helpers”. Over the years, I’ve picked up innumerable baby blankets tossed to the dirty cement floor. It was quite an undertaking and left me teetering on the edge of sanity, but I was into really good food back then.

With all this history in mind, I decided to kick it old school this week and go back to DFM, having grown tired of Costco’s mass-quantity “healthy” options, and feeling equally as bored with the usual mass-market Nabisco vibes at Publix. Despite its drab interior and the flashbacks to toddler meltdowns, DFM was like a long drink of water in a tasteless food desert. I suddenly remembered what real food was like.

Your Dekalb Farmer’s Market—its full name— is an iconic treasure on Atlanta’s food scene. Housed in a 140,000 square-foot, dark brown, 1970’s building east of Atlanta, it’s a odd-smelling warehouse full of wooden stands, dark aisles and glass cases of exceptionally good food, and at good prices. In general, it’s not for the buttoned-up or Whole Foods crowds; you’re more likely to see beat-up Subarus with peeling Bernie stickers than shinier rides like Broncos or Range Rovers.

Almost any ethnic or organic food item can be found here—fig paste, oat groats, hops, dragon fruit, deadly-hot peppers, sprouted whole wheat croissants, cow feet and goat meat. If you like whole foods—and not just the grocery chain—then this is the place for you.

The DFM doesn’t follow trends. It doesn’t sell candles, soaps, or crafts. There’s no updated exterior, no smoothie bar, no advertising, no tempting candy or merchandise by the checkout. It’s just tons of food, accented by flags of every nation hanging from the warehouse ceiling.

Logistics at the DFM are unique as well. It still doesn’t accept credit cards, and the shopping carts are kept only out in the parking lot—which is always a surprise to newbies who arrive on rainy days, full of food curiosity, only to find themselves trudging back outside for a wet cart.

Its employees hail from all over Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but most are Ethiopian. Many come from the community of recently-arrived refugees in nearby Clarkston, finding their first job at the market. Some are friendly, some are silent; most speak broken English.

When I shopped with my kids, cultural barriers made conversation an adventure. A pregnant Ethiopian cashier always smiled and waved us over to her line; she seemed lonely, and she was expecting her first baby. On the other hand, there was the churlish Indian cashier who tossed prized loaves of bread in my bags with unconcern. Over time, we knew which cashiers to avoid.

Speaking of the checkout, it’s a separate area near the exit, a large hall of scraped-up wooden counters set up around the perimeter of the room. On busy Fridays, the cashiers are heard shouting “PLLLICE CHECK!” when they need the manager, who bustles around to ensure that things run smoothly. For kids, friendly cashiers made asterisk-shaped stickers from strips of the green tape; it was normally used for securing container lids.

True to its legendary reputation, the DFM also has legendary employees—some delightful, and others dreadful. They are exceptionally hardworking, and with personalities as colorful as the produce that jams the aisles. With time, even the grouchiest among them became much-anticipated fixtures, the faces we knew on our harried weekly trips.

The coffee lady was, for many years, the market’s version of Seinfeld’s “soup Nazi”. She was barely visible over the racks of Yirgecheffe, Sumatra, and Costa Rican beans, but her loud, Middle Eastern scolds were impossible to miss. I felt sorry for the dawdling food tourists in the coffee line, because I knew they were going to get skewered by this fearsome lady. She was kinder to regulars, though; she once instructed me—in her frowning, opinionated way— that I really should be giving my kids goat milk.

The deli meat lady was friendlier; she handed out food samples long before Costco adopted this tactic. To my children’s great chagrin, I usually turned down her offers of thin-sliced turkey samples; our hands were filthy from touching random items around the market, and I was paranoid about stomach bugs.

The least engaging workers were the chicken and turkey sausage men. Women never worked in that area, for whatever reason; and the men who took orders were invariably cold and brusque. I always had to ask them to double-bag the ground sausage; they didn’t care if bits of raw chicken clung to the outer layer of the bag.

During my years of regular Friday shopping, my children encountered some sights; women in heavy burkas, silent and imposing; a man who stored his voluminous dreadlocks in a pillowcased frame, balanced atop his head. We found ourselves wandering through cultures, marked equally by terror and humor—a real-world brush with a world so unlike our own.

Most alarming of all, we faced a modern-day vampire—a pale white man with black hair, sharpened teeth, tattooed red eyes, strange piercings and huge black boots. He was standing next to the apple cider, which we still managed to retrieve. My eight-year-old girl was upset for the rest of the day.

Over time, the drab sights wore on my spirit, though. During a time when I was struggling mightily with OCD, the farmer’s market seemed a warehouse of oppression. In my fatigue, all I saw were dusty-looking hippie customers or cloaked women wandered darkened aisles of obscure food. No smiling faces—just a panoply of glum expressions that only amplified a low mood. I began to associate the DFM with a heavy spirit, and eventually, after years of going, I stopped.

I was glad to be relieved of the three-hour errand across town, but I felt foodie defeat in resorting to mass-produced food and produce from Chile. Dreary or not, the DFM has the best and healthiest food in Atlanta. There, we tracked the sun’s seasonal corn harvest from Florida to New Jersey, and looked forward to choosing our croissants. Its culture made for years of memories—good, bad, and strange— that only we and the the DFM faithful understood.

With these dramas playing in my head, I was surprised to find some joy in my return to Dekalb this week—some ten years after those heavier, homeschool days. The coffee lady has moved on, I guess, and I missed her chiding voice; but the sausage department and deli remained the same.

Coming home with ciabatta rolls and maple sausage was magical, and slicing through Florida’s tomatoes felt just like July. I’m inspired again to make the long drive, with my own shopping bags, and all under older but brighter skies. My new phase of life needs the flavors of the past—and finally we can eat good food again.