Indeed it was a chilly 40 degrees with brisk winds making it feel even colder at Saturday’s Deering Oaks Portland Farmers Market-or as one farmer put it, “I’m freezing my gahoonies off.”

Still the frosty weather is part of the market shopping scene at this time of year—at least for the outdoorsy hipster crowd resplendent in winter garb ambling along the leafless byways of Deering Oaks.  After all, what’s a week without getting fully sourced up on local Maine food?

Saturday morning at the Deering Oaks farmers market

Saturday morning at the Deering Oaks farmers market

Most farmers markets around Maine—which number over 30–have moved to their indoor locations by now.  But Portland follows its own set of peripatetic rules.  The tradition is to stay outdoors until after Thanksgiving, and the move inside occurs on the first Saturday in December.  However, the winter market location is not set in stone yet.  One thing is for sure, it won’t be at the Urban Farm Fermentory where it’s been for several years.  Unofficially the new space is slated to open in a complex at 84 Cove St., just down from the Fermentory.    I rode by there over the weekend to check it out.  I didn’t see anything remotely being readied for a market space among the disparate tenants in the buildings there now.

Brunswick's Ft. Andross

Brunswick’s Ft. Andross

Portlanders support the city’s indoor winter market enthusiastically. But the market itself suffers from significant limitations.  By comparison, the Brunswick Winter Market is a thriving marketplace with a diverse lineup of some 50 vendors.  And what’s offered goes way beyond food and products from the field, barn and root cellar.  Artisans, crafters, and farm chefs offer a wide range of products so that you can actually leave there with bags full of prepared food, produce, meats, poultry and fish as well as some nifty craft products from a diversity of artisans who set up shop at the market.

Toip, the scene at the Brunswick market; lower left: Norumbega Cidery and Moses Dyer Coffee

Toip, the scene at the Brunswick market; lower left: Norumbega Cidery and Moses Dyer Coffee

There are several factors that keep the growth of Portland’s market—both winter and summer—from exponential growth.  For one, there’s a faction of Portland’s farm vendors who want to keep it strictly farm grown.  The City of Portland also maintains a similar ideology. Prepared foods are not on the city agenda, for example, and the rest of its rules and regulations are mired in dogma governed by ridiculously arcane provisions.

Paragraph 1 of the city’s charter governing the markets sums it up:

All products offered for sale at the Farmer’s Markets must be local. Local is defined as that which is raised, produced or grown in the State of Maine.

It further states:

All licensees shall certify in writing that any product offered for sale shall be of their own raising. . . .

Witness this tidbit from the city charter found in Paragraph 8a of the rules and regulations:

does not allow for the sale of such items as rice crispy [sic] squares, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate fudge, or brownies, to name a few…cream fillings in pies, cakes or pastries, custard products, meringue topped bakery products, or butter cream type fillings in bakery products, will not be allowed.

Those sneaky meringues and lethal Rice Krispy squares are like arsenic throttling the necks of old lace.  I can only imagine that sometime in the past an erstwhile lawmaker was nearly felled by a chocolate kiss.

Portland is by now considered a mecca  in which to source local food whether in its restaurants or marketplace.  So it’s time for the actual farmers markets to heed the call.  One idea is for the city to sponsor a dedicated building on city land—or the ability to build one through public and private funding—that would hold a farmers market year round.  Perhaps this is something our new mayor can support.

In the meantime if you want the full regalia of shopping local, add places like Brunswick or Saco (it has a great winter market indoors at the Saco River complex) for their  more diverse marketplaces.

I went to the Saturday Portland market this past weekend early to buy a few items: eggs from Alewive’s; yogurt from Swallowtail, raw milk from Dandelion and apples from various vendors.

Featured, center, Paula Colby of Paula C's baking; various vendors; for a full list see market vendors

Featured, center, Paula Colby of Paula C’s baking; various vendors; for a full list see market vendors

Afterward I headed up to Brunswick’s first day of its winter market held at Ft. Andross, where there’s also plenty of parking.  There I picked up salsa from Lola’s Taqueria, bread from Zu Bakers, fish from Pemaquid Lobster and Seafood and stopped by some favorite vendors: the incredible organic vegetables from Six River Farm; the smoked fish and meats from Smith’s Smoke House; the great baked goods from Paula Colby, aka Paula C, the Richmond baker whose pies and pastries are downhome delicious.  Along the way I nibbled on one of those amazing popovers from the Farmer’s Daughter and considered ordering a Christmas goose from Apple Creek Farm.  I stopped by The Craftin Scot’s table for her handmade pot holders and made a mental note to bring my knives on my next visit for Wicked Sharp to hone and renew.