Get There Early, With Cash and a Bag

Most markets in market towns open at eight or nine and the good stuff goes in the first hour. If you want the pick of the strawberries, the last of the forced rhubarb or the sourdough with the properly dark crust, set an alarm. Turn up at half past eleven and you will still eat well, but you will be choosing from what is left rather than buying what you actually wanted.

Bring a few things with you. Cash is still king on many stalls, particularly the smaller growers who may not have a card reader or who would rather not lose the signal in a windy square. Your own bags — a sturdy cotton tote and a couple of smaller ones — save everyone a fiver's worth of plastic over a season. A cool bag in the car boot is worth the faff if you are buying fish, cheese or anything that will sulk in a warm car.

If you can, do a slow lap before you buy anything. Prices and quality vary more than you would expect between stalls selling the same thing, and the farmer with three crates of courgettes at the far end is often better value than the polished display near the entrance.

What Fresh Actually Looks Like

Freshness is not the same as tidiness. Supermarket produce is bred and handled to look uniform; market produce is bred to taste of something. Learn the difference and your cooking improves immediately.

• Roots and alliums should feel heavy for their size and be firm, with dry, papery skins. Spring onions and bunched beetroot with damp, limp tops have been out of the ground a while. Slightly muddy carrots are a good sign — it means they have not been scrubbed and polished for display.
• Leafy greens should squeak when you rub a leaf between finger and thumb. Yellowing edges, slimy patches or a tired droop mean they are past their best. Purple sprouting broccoli in late winter should have tight, deep-coloured heads rather than yellowing flowers.
• Soft fruit should smell of itself. A punnet of strawberries that gives off nothing will taste of nothing. Check the bottom of the punnet for juice and crush marks, and never let anyone pack them deeper than a single layer.
• Tomatoes should still have their green calyx attached and a faint, sweet scent at the stalk end. Hard, uniform, odourless tomatoes are a waste of your money whatever the label says.
• Eggs sold loose from a table should feel cool and have clean, uncracked shells. Ask the date they were laid — most small producers know to the day.

Buy in season and you will rarely be disappointed. British asparagus from late April to early June, broad beans and peas in June and July, damsons and quince in autumn, cavolo nero and leeks through the winter. If it is cheap and abundant, it is almost certainly at its best.

Questions Worth Asking a Grower

The person behind the stall is the best recipe and storage guide you will ever meet, and most are delighted to be asked. A few questions that reliably get a good answer:

• "When was this picked?" Answers like "this morning" or "yesterday evening" tell you far more than any sign.
• "Which variety is this, and why did you choose it?" Growers love this one. You will learn which potato makes the best roast and which apple actually deserves to be eaten raw.
• "How should I cook it?" or "What would you do with a kilo of these?" You will often get a family recipe thrown in.
• "What is coming next week?" This is how you plan a shop rather than guessing at it.
• "Do you sell seconds or gluts?" Cheap, slightly blemished produce is perfect for jam, chutney, soup and freezing.

Bakers, Cheesemakers and Other Makers

Bread should feel weighty for its size and spring back when you press the base. Tap the bottom: a hollow sound means it is baked through, a dull thud means it is not. Real sourdough keeps for days wrapped in a tea towel; a soft, squishy white loaf from a stall is fine for toast but will not last the week.

Cheese stalls will almost always let you taste before you buy, so ask. Buy a small piece of something you have never tried rather than a big piece of something familiar — that is how you build a proper cheeseboard over a few months. For pies, pastries and cakes, ask what is baked that morning; anything made on site tastes noticeably better than anything that has travelled.

Build Relationships, Not Just a Shopping List

The real reward of a market is repetition. Buy from the same three or four stalls for a season and something shifts: they remember what you liked, hold things back for you, and tell you honestly when something is not worth buying this week. That honesty is worth more than any discount.

Learn names. Say thank you. Ask about the weather, because for a grower it is not small talk — a wet June or a late frost shapes everything on the table. If you have a glut in your own garden, offer it; many small producers will swap, and some will happily take surplus fruit for preserves.

If you want to go further, ask whether they run a veg box, a community-supported scheme or volunteer days. Many small growers rely on a handful of regular helpers at harvest, and an hour of picking in exchange for a bag of produce is a fair and rather lovely arrangement. Turn up regularly enough and the market stops being a shop and starts being part of your week — and your cooking will be all the better for it.