Indeed, the Reading market made its bones as a farmers market, opening in 1892, the indoor and modernized successor (There was cold storage in the basement!) to the city's deteriorating system of street sheds.
But times change, and change again. And if the decline of farmers markets nearly doomed the Reading market by the 1970s, their revival just as swiftly lifted its fortunes. And that would have been just fine. But the cycle didn't end there: The old-style street sheds came back into vogue, too, starring cartons of fresh peaches and real, live farmers in muddy boots.
That threat has not escaped the notice of Paul Steinke, the market's general manager. So before the next growing season rolls around, he plans to fill the empty socket where the steak stand was extracted: He's offered to relocate (and double the 340-square-footprint of) the Fair Food Farmstand, the market's thriving - its gross was up 30 percent from last year - redoubt of local, family-farmed produce, crafted cheeses and grass-fed meat.
It's not the only source of local fruits and vegetables here: Farmer Earl Livengood offers them. And Kauffman's, the Amish stand. In season, the Iovine Brothers and O.K. Lee produce stalls supplement their lines of Big Ag produce with local berries and corn.
But Fair Food's determined, year-roundraison d'etre (as part of a White Dog Cafe initiative) is to forage for local, sustainable bounty, to champion it, to be an alternative food universe, to celebrate the irregular, the limited edition, the lost-flavor heritage breed.
When founder Ann Karlen opened it on a card table (one day a week) five years ago, it touted "humanely raised" food, upsetting nearby sandwich-makers and butchers who said it implied they were selling cruelly raised food.
