Grocery Shopping in Greece

As a follow-up to my last post about the food in Greece I thought I'd tell you about how people shop for their food. There are a couple supermarkets in a town about 20 minutes away by they're really about the size of a large convenience store. There are several produce stores and on certain days farmers would come into town and set up stalls with fresh produce. We would take advantage of the produce places as the price and product was better than the supermarket.

One of the major ways people shopped in the mountains where we were was with home delivery. Trucks and vans outfitted with bull horns and speakers would drive up and down the streets and call out their wares. If you were interested you would flag down the seller. You can get anything from fresh fish and produce to shoes and furniture. We would regularly run down for the bread man to get a daily loaf. Most people buy their bread everyday as it's without preservatives. Whatever is not eaten turns into toast, chicken food and compost.

Below are pictures of a produce seller. He called out "Fresca!" This is probably from his small farm. Most people tend a small vegetable garden by their house but there are plenty of small farms that grow a variety of things in a 1-5 acre space of land.

I really liked this way of distribution and I have to tell you that I had some of the freshest and most delicious produce while in Greece. Tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber, oranges, lemons, cherries, watermelon and peaches. The best peaches were from the neighbor's tree and they were to die for. I came home to Vancouver and and went to the produce store and was saddened to see rock hard nectarines and peaches from California. No thanks. I'm thinking that we don't even know what food is supposed to taste like. My daughters are so used to under-ripe, dry and crunchy fruit that they complained the fruit in Greece was too juicy and soft. Hopefully their opinions will change as they get older.

I would buy local produce if I could get it but I'm finding less and less of it in the stores. I will keep trying though because I want local farmers to know they have a market here and that I appreciate biting into a fresh ripe Okanagan peach. What do you think? Are farms disappearing in your area? Where does your produce come from?