Suffolk Quarter Farmers' Market: What to Buy in Each Month

Suffolk's farmers' markets change shape every few weeks. The stallholders who fill their tables with parsnips, kale and forced rhubarb in February are the same ones stacking asparagus in May and pumpkin wedges in October. Shopping with the calendar instead of a fixed list is the simplest way to eat well, waste less and cook with ingredients that taste of something. It is also the quickest way to learn what this county actually grows, which is far more than its flat fields and big skies suggest. Here is what to look for, month by month, and what to do with it once you get it home.

January and February: Roots, Greens and Forced Rhubarb

The first markets of the year are stripped back and honest. Parsnips, swede, celeriac, leeks and carrots dominate, and a frost or two does roots no harm at all — it turns starch to sugar, which is why a February parsnip tastes sweeter than a November one. Greens hold their own too: curly kale, cavolo nero, savoy cabbage, and purple sprouting broccoli from late February. Look out as well for Jerusalem artichokes, red cabbage, stored onions and squashes that have been sitting in a cool barn since autumn.

Buy roots unwashed, with the mud still on. They keep for weeks in a cold, dark place — far longer than anything scrubbed and bagged.

Then the first forced rhubarb arrives, magenta and squeaky, along with the last of the stored apples and pears. On the bakery stall, look for seeded rye, cheese scones and dense fruit cake — the kind of baking that suits a cold walk home. January is also when the marmalade makers appear, working through a short season of bitter Seville oranges that lasts barely six weeks. If you plan to make your own, buy two kilos more than you think you need.

Roast a big tray of roots on Sunday and you have the base for soup, a warm salad with blue cheese and walnuts, and a side dish for the rest of the week. Nothing else in the year rewards that habit quite so well.

March and April: Green Shoots and Easter Baking

Wild garlic starts to appear, followed by spinach, spring greens, watercress, spring onions, radishes and the first proper salad leaves. Purple sprouting broccoli is at its best through March, and it is worth buying in quantity, blanching and freezing while the price is low. Hens come back into lay as the days lengthen, so eggs are plentiful and worth buying by the dozen — the yolks are noticeably deeper in colour than anything from a supermarket shelf in December.

This is lamb season, and the market is the place to ask questions: which breed, which farm, how long it was hung. A stallholder who rears the animals will tell you more in thirty seconds than any label ever will.

Baking turns to hot cross buns, Simnel cake and Easter biscuits, and the flower stalls fill with daffodils, narcissi, tulips and pussy willow. Buy daffodils in tight bud and they will open across a week indoors — but keep them in their own vase, as their stems release a sap that shortens the life of other flowers.

May and June: Asparagus, Strawberries and Sweet Peas

Asparagus is the event of the year. The season is short, roughly late April to mid-June, and it is over before you have had your fill. Choose firm spears with tight, closed tips; if they bend easily, they are past their best. Cook them within a day or two, and simply — butter and salt, a squeeze of lemon, or a few minutes under a hot grill with parmesan.

Strawberries follow in late May and June, and this is strawberry country. If you plan to make jam, ask for a tray rather than a punnet; the fruit will be riper, cheaper and better suited to a pan. Eat the perfect ones fresh and turn the rest into jam the same evening, while the pectin is at its best.

The rest of the table fills in fast: broad beans, peas, new potatoes with skins so thin you can rub them off with a thumb, sorrel, rocket, chard and the first courgettes. Elderflowers appear in the hedgerows and on the stalls in the same week, ready for cordial. Then the flowers arrive properly — sweet peas with a scent that fills a whole kitchen, peonies, and the first bunches of British roses.

July and August: Soft Fruit, Sweetcorn and Beach Vegetables

High summer is the most generous stretch of the year. Tomatoes finally taste of something, sweetcorn is picked the same morning it is sold, and the soft fruit table turns over weekly: gooseberries, blackcurrants, raspberries, cherries, loganberries and plums. Courgettes, runner beans and French beans arrive in such quantity that stalls start selling them by the bowl rather than the pound.

On the coast, look for samphire and sea kale from the marsh edges — samphire needs nothing more than a rinse, a brief blanch and a knob of butter. Suffolk cheese and honey stalls are at their best now too, both made from summer grazing.

Buy tomatoes by the tray when they are at their peak, roast them with garlic and oil, and freeze the result in portions. It is the single best thing you can do in August for the January version of yourself.

September and October: Apples, Damsons and the First Pumpkin

The market turns gold and russet. Apples arrive in named varieties rather than colours — Discovery early, then Cox, Egremont Russet and the older Suffolk sorts you will never see in a shop — along with pears, quinces, damsons, greengages and cobnuts. This is the month to buy a box for storing and a bag for chutney.

Mushrooms appear after the first real rain, and squash and pumpkin follow, alongside marrows, beetroot, the last sweetcorn and the first of the autumn kale. Sloes and elderberries turn up for gin and cordial. It is also a good month to buy pickling onions, shallots and vinegar, if you have any ambition to fill a cupboard shelf.

Apples keep best cool, dark and separate. Wrap them in newspaper in a single layer, check them every fortnight, and one bad apple will not take the rest with it.

November and December: Game, Sprouts and Christmas Stalls

The year closes with the richest tables. Game is in season — pheasant, partridge, mallard, and venison from the estate herds — and so are Brussels sprouts on the stalk, red cabbage, parsnips again, chestnuts and forced rhubarb in the final days of December. Geese and turkeys are ordered weeks ahead, and pork, ham and sausages are at their best as the weather turns.

The Christmas markets are worth a slower visit than usual. This is when the chutneys, pickles, preserves, cheeses, ciders and wreaths appear, along with dried fruit, mincemeat, marzipan and boxed shortbread. Buy a wreath early and it will still look well on the door by the middle of the month; buy it late and you will pay more for less.

How to Shop a Suffolk Market Well

• Arrive early. The best of the soft fruit, the named apple varieties and the good bread go in the first hour.
• Take cash. Many small stalls still prefer it, and a card reader on a windy market square is a gamble.
• Bring your own bags — a basket, a box and a couple of cloth bags will cover almost everything.
• Talk to the people selling. Ask what is best this week, what is about to finish, and how they cook it. Nobody knows the answer better.
• Buy the ugly ones. Split tomatoes, knobbly roots and small apples taste exactly the same and cost less.
• Go late as well as early. The last half hour is when trays of berries and bags of greens are sold off cheaply.

What to Do With a Glut

Every good market visit eventually ends with more than you can eat in a week. That is not a problem — it is the point.

1. Roast and freeze. Roots, squash, tomatoes and peppers all freeze well once cooked with oil and herbs.
2. Blanch and freeze greens. Purple sprouting broccoli, beans and peas keep their colour for months.
3. Make jam, chutney or cordial. Soft fruit, elderflower, damsons and apples all take kindly to sugar and a pan.
4. Dry what is dryable. Herbs, chillies and apple rings need only a warm, airy room or a low oven.
5. Make stock. Every trimmed stalk, onion skin and mushroom end can go in a bag in the freezer until you have enough.
6. Share it. Half a tray of plums given to a neighbour is a far better use than a sad bowl at the back of the fridge.

Shop this way for a year and two things happen. Your cooking gets simpler, because the ingredients are already doing the work, and your shopping list starts writing itself. The market is only ever telling you what time of year it is.

Photo: MikeGoad / Pixabay