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This is the Tel-Aviv Farmers market, which once a week lets farmers from across Israel showcase and test their new brands and varieties to the public. And if some of those original Israeli fruits and vegetable will get a positive feedback expect to find them at the grocery store near you.
Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
We are at the Tel-Aviv Farmers market which once a week lets farmers from across Israel showcase and test their new brands and varieties to the public.
Shir Halpern founded the Tel-Aviv Farmers Market with Michal Ansky, best known from reality show Master Chef, to bring to Israel a tradition, which is already well established in many countries of the world.
Shir Halpern, Co-Founder TLV Farmers Market:
In Tel Aviv Farmer’s market we bring the Israeli customer things he can’t find in a supermarket, so for example here you see colored watermelons; you have a yellow watermelon, you have one that is yellow on the outside and red on the inside, you have an orange one, they are all new Israeli developments of agriculture. This is what we call bio-diversity; it’s bringing the culture of food, culture of agriculture, new flavors, new developments. You always come here discovering new things, discovering new varieties that you can’t find in a supermarket, you can’t find anywhere else, you need to be a bit gutsy because it’s nothing like you’ve seen, you can find you know ugly ducklings here but they, they have great flavor, it’s great flavors, it’s new things; you can find purple potatoes, you can find 15 kinds of sherry-tomatoes, you can find fresh carrots and colored carrots so it’s really, this is all about localism, it’s all about seasonality, it’s all about re-discovering.
We talked to some of the farmers at the market to find out about the new varieties of fruits and vegetables they are introducing to the Israeli public.
Yakobi Cohen, Tomatec:
Here you can find some new sherry varieties; mini-plum and plum tomatoes, we have yellow tomatoes, we have pink tomatoes and the most important is that this tomato have a very good taste, a sweet taste, they have five times more lycopene and vitamin A. In the morning we have 10 different varieties of tomatoes, with different taste, every variety has a different taste.
Ori Greenpeter, Moshav Mishmeret:
The Snake eggplant is really an amazing eggplant, has this creamy texture and it’s not bitter at all. It’s really tasty and a lot of people love to put it on wok or put it in all kinds of stews and it’s really, I mean it goes really well with some salt and olive oil in the oven. It’s really amazing, it’s an Israeli development, it’s really good, people love it here. Everyone that buys it just comes back and says give me more.
Ziv Green, Moshav Neta’aim:
The mini-mini cherries have a very sweet taste, similar to chocolate and a bit of vanilla inside, very peculiar taste, very special. The first time people try they kind of have some kind of weird reaction to it but from the second one people just fall in love.
Ami Berkovitz, Amiel Berries:
These Plums are wild now in Israel, but a hundred year before it was in the culture. We do plants, new plants from the wild and now we grow it in the culture, in regular growing.
Roni Bendor, Bendor Fruit Farm:
At Bendor, we export our fruits all over the world and here we check it on Israeli customers, to see what they like, what they like more, what they like less, this time we bring the “Pita” Nectarine, it’s our development, it’s very tasty, it’s a flat orange nectarine, the Israelis like to call it Pita nectarine it’s because it reminds them the pita bread.
Chef Eyal Lavi of the Rokah Market restaurant explains to us how being located right at the market gives his establishment an edge over the competition.
Eyal Lavi, Chef, Rokah Market:
It’s a game that we come every morning and we see what’s new in the market and we change the menu according to the season, according to new vegetable, fruits or things that we find. We’re exposed to new species, new materials, new fruits. It’s very interesting and for me as a chef and for my staff, we have the opportunity to touch, to cook, to create new things and it’s great.
Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
Some of those original Israeli fruits and vegetable are now in their testing stages and once they’ll be bread commercially expect to find them at the grocery store near you. For JN1 I am Ron Jacobsohn at the Farmers Market in Tel-Aviv
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