Flemington Markets

I have written about Flemington Markets a few times in the past, but never taken my camera until now. It's a bit of a madhouse, and these photos don't really do it justice.

There are two places two park - at street level, where it is a fight to find space for a scooter, or upstairs where it's almost always empty. Most of the punters don't seem to realise that they can park upstairs in the parking station, but they might not want to park up here because it involves lugging groceries up several flights of stairs.



This is what the parking is like for the goons that decide to stick to ground level. If you can extract your car from here without it being dented or extensively scratched, you are doing well. Most of the cars look like they have had a narrow escape with a crusher at a wreckers yard. I stay well away from them. Then again, the drivers also look like they hold an Albanian drivers license, or collected their license from a packet of breakfast noodles.



The markets are held in the big shed in the background there. Getting there involves crossing a road that is normally thick with trucks, goonhead drivers and forklifts, with the forklifts generally going backwards at full speed.



A slightly better view of the shed, with a forklift zooming around.



Here's the outside of the shed. There usually seems to be a bloke selling eggs and watermelons at this en, and all the Asian greens are to be bought along the wall. Walking along here is a bit like wandering through Hong Kong.

Many people rent a shopping trolley, which is a good business in its own right. You pay $10 for a trolley, and get $7 back when you return it. I wish our local supermarket had a trolley deposit like that - there were 3 trolleys outside when I went to the markets this morning.

The trolleys are enormous - much bigger than your average Woolies trolley. Unfortunately, most of the people who rent them are no better at pushing a trolley than they are at driving a car. I usually spend half my time keeping clear of them in order to save my ankles. The best bet is to get there by 7.30am, as after that, it gets really crowded with trolleys, and you can spend half your shopping time stuck in trolley jams.

Other regulars take "grannie" shopping baskets, which is a great idea. I must get one some day.



This is one of my favourite stalls, although I rarely shop here. It's the spcie stall - each of those buckets holds a different spice. The smell is something else.I screwed up the photo though.



This is my spud man. He is selling kipfler spuds for $3.50 a kilo. They are $11 in my local supermarket. His selection is three times greater than our supermarket, and his prices are lower. Why would you go anywhere else?



The photo above illustrates the main reason why I go - the range and selection of produce. Most of the time, you can actually buy a wider range of fruit and vegetables in your local supermarket, but that's because half of them have been sitting in cool rooms for six months. The stuff at the markets is all fresh. When I say "range", I mean the range within a particular fruit or vegetable. I can buy 9 types of spuds from the spud guy. Most supermarkets offer two, and who knows when they were dug up.

The end result is that our spud plate in the pantry looks something like this:



My main problem is that I keep forgetting which type of spud is good for what.

Check out these two apples. The one on the left came from our supermarket, and cost $7 a kilo. The one on the right cost $1.60 a kilo from the markets. Both are the same variety.

The apple from the markets is slightly undersize, but it is actually the perfect size for Junior's lunchbox. A standard sized apple from the supermarket is just too bloody big.

Some of the market apples also have blemishes, but I don't care as I am going to chop them up to either make apple sauce to go with some pig, or into an apple pie. Who needs a perfect skin when you're going to cook the blasted things?



The humble tomato at the moment costs a packet. Those in the bowl cost me up to $12 a kilo at the supermarket and they taste like shit. Even though they are bright red, they are devoid of flavour. They've kept their shape, but that's all they are good for.

The ones at the bottom cost me $5.something at the markets, and they smell and taste so much better.



Here is the clincher - pine nuts. I use a lot of them. The bag on the left cost $25 a kilo - I bought 250gm worth.

The packet on the right holds 40gms, and cost over half what I paid in total for 250gm at the markets. Just shows what putting them in a nice bag and hanging them in a supermarket aisle can do for value-add.