I don’t think my mom has ever been happier than when she bought a giant bag of shelling peas at the San Francisco Ferry Wharf Saturday farmers market. Maybe when she married my dad. Maybe. I mean, she loves my dad, but she really loves shelling peas.
We were planning a picnic for the next day. But that’s not why she bought the peas. In fact, when I first mentioned the picnic, she said we’d better buy a second bag of peas, because she didn’t want to run out.
We then proceeded to shell and eat raw peas for the next four days as we traipsed from museum to museum in San Francisco and winery to winery in Sonoma County.
I said I don’t think my mom has ever been happier, but it wasn’t just her; I sure was happy too. And if you’ve never had a raw pea yourself, you’ve been missing out on life.
These aren’t snap peas or snow peas. They’re not the ones you cook whole in stir-fries. You can’t eat the shells because they’re generally too tough. The smaller ones are fully edible, but then the peas themselves won’t be very big. So it’s best to wait. Be patient with the season. Besides, the shells are great for compost, so you don’t need to feel bad about not eating them.
There’s a short season for these peas. You have to pick them before they get too big and starchy, but neither can they be too small or you’ll open the pea shell and there’ll only be tiny wastes of peas inside.
But, when they’re just right, they’re sugar sweet and crunchy.
And the best part is that you could spend an hour shelling peas ones by one and eating them and you wouldn’t feel sick like you would if you just ate an hour’s worth of candy (or peaches or cherries – both of which you could sample endlessly at this incredible market).
You’ll even have room leftover for gluten free, dairy free, soy free cinnamon buns from Mariposa Bakery inside the Ferry Wharf building. It’s open daily, so you can come back another day for the carrot cake or – if you’re more into savoury baked goods – the incredible, olive-oil-rich, gluten free focaccia.
But you’ll probably want to be back the next Saturday for more walnut butter and rosemary walnuts from Old Dog Ranch.
Or the endless strawberries from Lucero organic farms.
Or the sustainable Pacific salmon gravlax.
Or the olives and baby artichokes.
Or the fresh pomegranate juice. The lemon cucumbers. Ceviche and poke (for the non-gluten free-ers).
And natto and amazake from Aedan Fermented Foods.
Have you ever compared five kinds of apricots? Three kinds of white peaches? Three kinds of yellow? Heirloom navel oranges? Sweet limes (they taste like sweetened water, with no acidity at all)? White grapefruit that taste like pomelos? You could.
There are also two ice cream places (one sometimes has a sorbet, but it’s mostly cream, water buffalo and skimmed milk versions), a couple olive oil places, a crazy popular cheese place (Cowgirl Creamery) and a small booth for a rotating variety of local food artisans (the second time I went, there was a woman selling agar-agar layered jelly desserts).
The market is large. It feels bigger than the interior of Montreal’s Jean-Talon Market but smaller than St. Lawrence Market in Toronto. The walking space is a bit bigger, though, which is nice. But once the farmer’s market hits the outdoor area, the San Francisco market is a bit bigger than both Canadian ones, I think. Or maybe I was just fooled by the amount of peaches.
But what stuck out the most were the peas and the cinnamon buns. I think my mom and I could live on those two things. Well, until we couldn’t. But that seems like an unimaginably long time from now.
San Francisco Ferry Wharf Market
Every Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday, but the biggest is Saturday from 8am-2pm.
BART stop: Embarcadero
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