Comments (4) Best Farmers' Market - 2009
Canino's Produce
We were as excited as anyone else about the early 2000s boomlet in farmers' markets all over Houston. Sadly, each of them disappointed us. Yeah, we're down with the whole "support the American farmer" and "buy local produce" movements, but when all you've got are a few tables with piles of chard, artisanal cheese and arugula on them, it reminds us less of bountiful America than of some kind of snooty version of a godforsaken nutrition-deficient Soviet backwater. Give us the majesty of the purple mountains of eggplants and amber waves of maize of Canino's any day. There you can fully stock your produce drawer, fruit bowl and tamale platter in one fell swoop, not to mention pick up a piñata and a licuado while you're at it, all at the best prices and the highest quality in town. And we also just love the experience of shopping there — the crush and bustle of the throngs of shoppers, the disarray of the box- and tamale-wrapper-strewn parking lot, the crunch of reggaeton beats, the lisping norteño accordions and the blat of tuba-driven banda music, and the beep-beep-beep of forklifts ferrying boxes of mangos to and fro.
