Supporting Markets is Supporting Women | March 14, 2022

Fresh & Local:

Supporting Markets is Supporting Women

For our next Women’s History Month spotlight, we wanted to highlight the work of Fannie Lou Hamer. Perhaps best known for her civil rights work, Fannie Lou Hamer, a native of neighboring Mississippi, was also a women’s rights activist, focused on community organizing and on efforts that extended into food systems work. Her Freedom Farm Cooperative (FFC) sought to create conditions of self-sufficiency for African American farmers - something she’d faced personally after being fired and evicted for registering to vote. Her Pig Bank project protected families against hunger as the bank lent a pregnant pig to a family, who paid interest back in the form of piglets. FFC endeavors provided food security and political freedom, challenging political power structures and the exploitation of sharecropping. The FFC eventually closed in 1976, only four decades ago, illuminating the ongoing race and gender inequality that our food system and our region still faces today. A key component of Market Umbrella’s mission of supporting “public markets for public good” is helping to address these systemic issues by operating 3 year-round, public markets and offering a variety of food access and nutrition incentive programs in support of our customers, most of whom are women, by our staff, almost all of whom are women, and for our vendors, many of whom are women. Next time you’re at the market you can remember that Supporting Markets is Supporting Women!

Picks of the Week:

Recirculating Farms at Tuesday Market

If you frequent our Tuesday market in Uptown Square, you may have seen our friends with Recirculating Farms. Recirculating Farms is an urban farm based in Central City. They are committed to building healthy communities through training, outreach and advocacy on innovative farming and food justice. Interested in learning more about food access in NOLA? Stop by their table at the market for information from community fridges to SNAP/EBT enrollment.

Tom Andes Performing at the Tuesday Uptown Market

We have another exciting performance in store for y'all tomorrow! With influences ranging from Johnny Cash to REM, from Prince to Lou Reed, New Orleans-based singer-songwriter Tom Andes tells stories of the lonely, the brokenhearted, and the downwardly mobile. They run the gamut from finger-picked acoustic blues in the style of Mississippi John Hurt to traditional country to his secular take on gospel to tunes that might have sounded at home on the indie rock charts in the late 90s. Come hangout and enjoy some live music from 9:30 - 11:30 am at the Tuesday Uptown Market at 200 Broadway St. at the River.

This week’s staff book pick:
What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women & the Food that Tells Their Stories

Laura Shapiro is a celebrated journalist and culinary historian whose book, What She Ate, offers us a glimpse into the lives of 6 notable women in recent history. She examines their stories through the lens of food, asking the questions, “What did she eat, and why?” and “Who was she eating with?” Every person has their experiences with food and the act of eating. Ms. Shapiro’s book looks into what drives these women to eat the way that they do and how these choices define them.

Vendor of the Week:

T&R Dairy

Meet Mary Regan, the dairy farmer behind T&R Dairy! Hailing from Liberty, Mississippi, Mary is a fourth-generation dairy farmer, producing aged cheese, yogurt, whole milk and eggs, along with beef and pork yielded from their grass-fed cattle. As a principal part of the CCFM community since 2018 Mary doesn’t miss a market, so find her on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday.

Recipes of the Week:

Levee Baking Co.’s Carrot Cake

This week we are excited to celebrate one of our former vendors– Christina Balzebre from Levee Baking Co. Christina taught herself how to bake by working at different restaurants around New Orleans; from Surrey’s Cafe to Juice Bar to Satsuma Cafe and Willa Jean. On the weekends, she sold her own pastries and bread at a pop-up on Dryades, eventually joining the CCFM. With long lines and a growing following, Christina opened her brick and mortar in 2019 off of Magazine St. All of her breads are naturally leavened and her pastries feature local produce and foods found at the Crescent City Farmers Market. Grab some carrots and local pecans at the market and check out her famous recipe for Carrot Cake with black sesame seeds and a divine cream cheese frosting.

What’s your favorite dish to make after visiting the Crescent City Farmers Market? Share your recipes with us on Instagram or Facebook and it might be featured in our weekly newsletter!