American farmers’ markets are almost as old as America itself. Transplanting the customs of the Old Country as well as the seeds they’d carried with them, farmers would hitch up the horse and buggy and trot into town to sell their home-grown produce. Then the practice was banished in favor of supermarkets, where shopping became about as exciting as touring a morgue. Today the movement’s come full circle, with farmers’ markets returning to claim new urban niches.

They’re crammed with customers who’ve had their fill of plastic-wrapped tomatoes with a shelf life longer than your modern marriage.