2008 Woodie Awards
More than the Arch
By: Kim Nolan
Issue date: 3/30/06 Section: LifeStyle
- Page 1 of 1
The bellows of vendors and squawks of roosters can be heard between Lafayette and Seventh streets.
The Soulard Farmer's Market, a community favorite since 1843, opens its doors Wednesdays through Saturdays year- round. For students shopping and cooking on a shoestring budget, this is worth the 15- minute drive from Webster. Saturdays are the best day to experience the abundance and bustle of the market. Down each of the four wings of the marketplace pyramids of fruit and vegetables are stacked high on tables or in baskets. Highlights of the market are locally grown produce at low prices.
In addition to produce, vendors supply the market with local fish, pork, chicken and beef. Some of the meat isn't packaged for the faint at heart - pigs' snouts, chicken feet and fish heads are sold alongside the breasts and chops.
The market offers specialty items including hand-made pasta, knit hats, Cardinals T-shirts, incense and perfume. For sweet-seekers who want to eat their way through the market, there are pies, pastries and mini-donuts to lead the way. In the center of the market are small food stands - selling quick fixes like chili and bratwurst.
According to http://www.missouri.org, "Soulard Farmer's Market was created when Julia Cerre Soulard donated two undeveloped half-blocks of her real estate to the city of St. Louis in the year 1838. Her instructions dictated that the donated property by used as a public marketplace in perpetuity, lest it be reclaimed by her heirs."
A private corporation of farmers built the market's first building. They used their proceeds to build a one-story brick building in the Greek revival style intending the building to evoke permanence and stability.
An 1896 tornado damaged the market's original building, and architect Albert Osburg designed and built the existing building in 1929 modeled after the Foundling Hospital of Florence, Italy.
Every Saturday, at one entrance to the market, sits Charles Haller. He is typically heard plucking his banjo, sitting on a bucket or box and singing a range of folk songs. The rest of Haller's band, The Bates Street Folk 'n Blues Band, joins him on Monday nights at Iron Barley, 5510 Virginia Ave., where smokehouse barbecue and storytelling musicians come together with a banjo, a fiddle and a harmonica.
The Soulard Farmer's Market, a community favorite since 1843, opens its doors Wednesdays through Saturdays year- round. For students shopping and cooking on a shoestring budget, this is worth the 15- minute drive from Webster. Saturdays are the best day to experience the abundance and bustle of the market. Down each of the four wings of the marketplace pyramids of fruit and vegetables are stacked high on tables or in baskets. Highlights of the market are locally grown produce at low prices.
In addition to produce, vendors supply the market with local fish, pork, chicken and beef. Some of the meat isn't packaged for the faint at heart - pigs' snouts, chicken feet and fish heads are sold alongside the breasts and chops.
The market offers specialty items including hand-made pasta, knit hats, Cardinals T-shirts, incense and perfume. For sweet-seekers who want to eat their way through the market, there are pies, pastries and mini-donuts to lead the way. In the center of the market are small food stands - selling quick fixes like chili and bratwurst.
According to http://www.missouri.org, "Soulard Farmer's Market was created when Julia Cerre Soulard donated two undeveloped half-blocks of her real estate to the city of St. Louis in the year 1838. Her instructions dictated that the donated property by used as a public marketplace in perpetuity, lest it be reclaimed by her heirs."
A private corporation of farmers built the market's first building. They used their proceeds to build a one-story brick building in the Greek revival style intending the building to evoke permanence and stability.
An 1896 tornado damaged the market's original building, and architect Albert Osburg designed and built the existing building in 1929 modeled after the Foundling Hospital of Florence, Italy.
Every Saturday, at one entrance to the market, sits Charles Haller. He is typically heard plucking his banjo, sitting on a bucket or box and singing a range of folk songs. The rest of Haller's band, The Bates Street Folk 'n Blues Band, joins him on Monday nights at Iron Barley, 5510 Virginia Ave., where smokehouse barbecue and storytelling musicians come together with a banjo, a fiddle and a harmonica.