Every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, farmers awaken to the pitch black, even earlier than their usual early, tired muscles and aching backs. Tea is brewed, bread is broken, and ancient cars are coaxed to life as a migration begins from the villages to the city. Farmers, shepherds, cheesemakers, and flower peddlers make their way down the slopes to the valley bottom, to the early-morning bustle of the Milas Market, their stands forming a fabric of color decorating the concrete floor.
The Milas Farmers’ Market is extensive, with hundreds of vendors selling heirloom varieties of little-known fruits and vegetables, herbs and wild greens collected from the mountains, barnyard eggs and raw milk sold in reused cola bottles. There are endless shades of homegrown beans, handmade tomato paste and spices, grassy olive oil from their own fields, sundried fruits and nuts of all varieties. Men peddle ice cream and syrupy desserts, pushing their carts through the crowds, while the scent of sizzling meat drifts over from the nearby grill shops, vendors and shoppers alike populating the stools outside.
It’s noisy, it’s hot, it’s chaos. But amidst all of it, hides some of the very best, freshest, and most unadulterated produce available anywhere in the country. Dirt still clings to colorful radishes, their tops crunchy and green. The scents of mint, all distinct to the trained smeller, waft hundreds of meters from their point of origin. Bundled tufts of deep green brassica hint at the broccoli of decades past. Figs fade from deep purple, to florescent green, with speckled specimens filling the range in between.
Such intensely beautiful produce can only be sold by a group of intense, hardy villagers, the residents of the mountain communities surrounding Milas. Spearheaded by women, stalls are manned by colorfully clothed individuals, decorated in their best despite the dirt never leaving their nail beds. These are people that have worked hard to produce what they can in whatever conditions their meager fields provide. Generally alone with their vegetables, they are quick to spark a conversation and grateful for the social life that the market provides.
All in all, the Milas Market is a destination in itself. Not only a place to pick up a few ingredients, but a window into the deeply rooted culture of the Turkish Aegean, and a guaranteed fast track to delicious cooking.
