The Earth Fair food market deserves a look see

The Biscuit Mill's Neighbourgoods Market has set a bench­mark for just how good food mar­kets can be in Cape Town. When it began, some three years ago now, we were blown away by Justin Rhodes' and Cameron Munro's ini­ti­at­ive, and the award-winning mar­ket now fea­tures over 100 spe­cialty traders, with a wait­ing list of some­thing close on 100 as well. It's an excel­lent mar­ket, one you'd be hard­pressed to beat ...

Yet, des­pite my being an avid fan of the mar­ket, it's more than a little pricey to eat there nowadays, and rather intim­id­at­ing to try and find a spot to warm your bum on a bench whilst you scoff the latest gour­ment product, given the throngs that des­cend on Woodstock on any given Saturday morn­ing. So, for those of you in search of some­thing new that is not only set to be equally as good but also emphas­ises the local, artisan and sus­tain­ab­il­ity aspect of food, head off to the Earth Fair mar­ket in Tokai.

Earth Fair is also an indoor mar­ket. It lies in the South Palms (for those of you to whom this means noth­ing, it's actu­ally in the same area as Builders Warehouse in Main Road, although behind Bathroom Bizarre). There is plenty of park­ing, for a start, and there are activ­it­ies for kids, which for many liv­ing in Tokai is some­thing of a god­send on a Saturday morning.

The atmo­sphere strikes you imme­di­ately on walk­ing through the door. There is music pump­ing through the mar­ket that sets the tone, without being at all intrus­ive — any­thing but, actu­ally. We didn't have to move much fur­ther than the stall imme­di­ately infront of the door for the first ten minutes or so, as the qual­ity bis­cuits on offer from Empire Cafe so entranced my son that we were quickly in con­ver­sa­tion, and Dave read­ily informed us that he was very happy with the mar­ket and was doing extremely well out of it.

When the stall facing the pub­lic as they enter the door does such a good mar­ket­ing job then your work is that much easier, and Jacqui Simpson is someone who knows a thing or two about mar­ket­ing (it wasn't too long ago that she was doing just that for a living).

Jacqui has made sure that all of her stall­hold­ers are hand­picked and sell qual­ity products. There is noth­ing at the Earth Fair mar­ket that isn't worth more than a curs­ory glance. This isn't a mar­ket that brings you everything and any­thing. This is local food at its best. No-one here is even slightly dodgy, and the aim is that here you will eas­ily be able to stock up on the week's food — fruit, veget­ables (organic and local), free range and organic meat, local and organic cheese, bread and bis­cuits, sus­tain­able fish, local and organic beer — and sit and enjoy a meal whilst you're at it. And people love it.

Down one side of the ware­house is a seat­ing area, table d'hôte –style, in amongst the 'fast food' slow-food-style sec­tion where you can enjoy any num­ber of scrump­tious meals on offer — gour­met baguettes, fala­fal pitas, crepes etc. We shared a par­tic­u­larly good (bought on recom­mend­a­tion from our imme­di­ate neigh­bours at the table) Italian-style naan bread pre­pared with a delect­able top­ping that seemed to con­sist of tomato and braised onion with free-range beef, topped with fresh rocket, accom­pan­ied by a non-traditional, first of its kind in South Africa, honey blonde ale pro­duced by the Birkenhead inde­pend­ent micro-brewery in Stanford (con­tain­ing wild Stanford fyn­bos honey) and a car­rot juice from the Ethical co-op team.

Alongside is a kids play sec­tion that is really great! Tables with black­board tab­letops (how many times has your tod­dler not burst to draw all over the table!?), sand art, play dough and a series of funky stools on which accom­pa­ny­ing par­ents can sit.

The organic sec­tion, imme­di­ately along­side the 'sit and eat' sec­tion, includes smooth­ies and juices from the Ethical co-op , fresh pro­duce from Funky Greens, and Kids Bites — pat­ties, fish sticks and veget­able balls made from organic pro­duce that are def­in­itely worth stick­ing in your freezer for lunches or din­ners (I bought the fish sticks, which were par­tic­u­larly scrummy and are free of chem­ic­als, pre­ser­vat­ives, and made from sus­tain­able fish and organic veget­ables — what more can you want from fast food for kids?)

Rudi's saus­ages are going to have the tongues wag­ging sooner rather than later. I am not a meat fan – I def­in­itely don't do saus­age, nor­mally speak­ing — but the saus­ages my hus­band bought were def­in­itely in a league of their own. Rudi's saus­ages, not sold by any­one called Rudi (we were enter­tained by Stephane Bottalico, one of a team of four who have star­ted the busi­ness) are free of pre­ser­vat­ives, have no MSG, no addit­ives to cre­ate bulk, like soya, rusk or potato starch, the spices are hand mixed and only home grown herbs are used, and the meat comes from homegrown pork, lamb and free range beef, organic spring­bok, eland, wild boar, ostrich and wild goose – all made accord­ing to tra­di­tional Argentine, French, German, Italian and Spanish saus­age recipes. And let me tell you, speak­ing as a non-meat enthu­si­ast, these guys have got it right!

Next to Rudi's was Stokkiesdraai biltong – again hor­mone free, pre­ser­vat­ive free kudu, ostrich and beef biltong and droë wors — well worth a taste. On the fish side of things you can buy sus­tain­able fish from Fish 4 Africa or the Fish Deli, and people were lin­ing up for cheese from the Constantia Cheesery and Farm Cheese.

The good news is that Earth Fair mar­ket is also open on Wednesday even­ings from 2pm until 8pm – reason to stock up mid­week, and get a won­der­ful, fest­ive sup­per in at the same time. Jacqui says that it's tak­ing a while to warm up, but I have no doubt that Wednesdays will become quite the hit with par­ents in Tokai, Bergvliet and Muizenberg given time.

Find out more about the mar­ket http://www.earthfairmarket.co.za/
Every Saturday 9.00 am — 2.30 pm
Every Wednesday 2.00 pm — 8.00 pm
Telephone: Jacqui on +27 (0)84 220‑3856

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