Joanne and I have a Saturday morning tradition.
Before you hide the stash and tell the kids that they cannot read my column this morning, let me reassure you, it’s not that Saturday morning tradition. You know-the one where you wake up and feign restlessness. Kick the sheets around a bit. Coyly sneak a peek at each other with one squinted, barely-open eye. Waiting to see who will make the first move. Silently daring the other to show a sign of willingness. And then … mutual capitulation. Roll over, stretch away the nightly accumulation of stiff joints, and get out of bed. Time to mow the lawn.
No … the Saturday morning tradition I’m talking about is the time-honored farmers market. I’m not sure when the concept of the modern-day farmers market began-but I do know where it got its roots (pun intended). It all started back in Europe, probably just before the Dark Ages. Sometime in the Light Gray Ages.
Farmers-or peasants as they were called back then-were each given a small plot of land by a man they referred to as the Supreme, All-Powerful, Mighty Master, Ruler of the Realm. The title was, as you can see, a mouthful. But one foggy morning, after several peasants partied all night at a concert featuring Benny King, Albert King and BB King, they came up with a new title for their Supreme, All-Powerful, Mighty Master, Ruler of the Realm: “Benny Al BB.” But the Supreme, All-Powerful, etc., had a brother who was already named Benny. He was an arms dealer who got rich selling black-market trebuchets to marauding hordes of Huns for 10 farthings on the pound.
So the peasants went back to the village pub, and after several pints of swill (Beer had not yet been invented. Everyone agreed that if swill was good enough for the hogs, it was good enough for them. Their swill recipe has been handed down through the ages and, in fact, is still being used by some of the biggest American beer brewers today), they came up with the simple title … King.
And so the King, grateful to the peasants for leaving his brother’s name out of his new title, generously gave them their own plot of land. A “plot” was officially defined by the King’s royal definer as “a chunk of dirt that shall not exceed the size of the King’s closet.” The definition was abandoned after the queen had the castle remodeled and the King’s closet expanded to the size of a modern-day football field (hers took on the dimensions of a Dillard’s).
The royal definer then wrote that a plot was “a chunk of dirt that shall not exceed the size of the King’s bathroom.” Since bathrooms had not yet been invented (they would eventually come into being after beer was invented), the King had his royal definer beheaded on the new guillotine that he bought from his brother Benny for 10 farthings on the pound.
The newly appointed royal definer defined a plot as “a chunk of dirt no larger in diameter than the King’s gut.” I know to most of you that sounds like a pretty small plot, but keep in mind we’re talking about a King who had absolutely nothing better to do all day than lie around on the royal couch, watch the royal carpenters endlessly remodel the castle, and eat turkey legs the size of small sheep and quaff quarts of swill.
Soon, enterprising peasants were growing their own vegetables on their own gut-sized plot. Vegetables back then were different than the vegetables that we have today. Tomatoes had not yet been invented. Purple-hull peas would have to wait until Southerners evolved. And while they had rutabagas, even the Light Gray Age peasants were discriminating enough not to eat them. However, they did add them into their swill.
For three or four generations, the peasants, not the sharpest arrows in the quiver, watched as their sweet corn, peas, beans and cucumbers died from the early frost. They inhabited the colder climes of Northern Europe where the growing season was only seven or eight days. Most of the world’s population lived in Northern Europe in the Light Gray Ages. Southern Europe was reserved for vacations. Or what they called “holiday” back then, and the King’s brother Benny had already snapped up nearly all of the prime real estate. He got it for a song-10 farthings on the pound. He developed it into condominiums and vacation (or holiday) resorts.
Begrudgingly they began to plant root-type vegetables. Through trial and error they found that only beets, parsnips, potatoes and rutabagas would grow. After a few years of a steady, boring diet of beets, parsnips, potatoes and rutabagas washed down with swill, the peasants grew tired of eating all those roots and invented the world’s first rudimentary form of a farmers market.
Since peasants were the only people around (city folk had not yet been invented … they would evolve after bathrooms and beer had been invented), they had no customers and the whole concept nearly failed. However, it survives today because of the valiant and no-less brilliant efforts of one man.
The King’s brother Benny came to the rescue. He bought their entire crop for 10 farthings on the pound and packed it on camels returning to China on the historically famous Root Route.
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Bill Rausch is a freelance writer from Little Rock. Email him at [email protected] .
Editorial, Pages 17 on 09/21/2013