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Midleton Farmers’ Market
Appears in
By Mark Hix
Published 2006
Local town markets are notorious for selling junk and it’s refreshing to find a market like Midleton that is entirely devoted to good-quality produce and served by the producers themselves. Tom Doorley, The Irish Times food and wine writer, was my tour guide and I got proper introductions to the producers. You can shop for the week here and really feel like you’ve been there and done it all. The market closes fairly early, so morning is your best bet to get a good look at what’s on offer.
On a good day you are likely to find Myrtle Allen, Darina’s mum from Ballymaloe, tending the Ballymaloe Cookery School Gardens stand, selling home-grown salads and vegetables, breads and biscuits, and pasta sauces. Frank Hederman from Belvelly Smokehouse will come with a loaded van of smoked eel, salmon, wild mussels and mackerel, and more. Declan Ryan, artisan baker of Arbutus, just can’t fit enough bread into his van for the day and, when I arrived at midday, he had almost run out, except for the bag of pizza dough he handed over to Tom.