Is The Farmer's Market Is Good Again?
Decatur Metro | October 19, 2008A month and a half ago, you’ll recall we had a rather extended discussion concerning the “fishy/chemical” smell that had taken over Your DeKalb Farmer’s Market, stemming from a letter that Paula sent to management. Though we held out little hope for any improvement since management was notoriously private and unresponsive, we found near unanimous agreement (a rare feat on this site) that there was indeed a funk and it was definitely getting worse.
Welp, after a couple of recent reports that the smell had gotten noticeably better in recent weeks, the misses and I ventured back to judge for ourselves.
And let me just say…its amazing. I smelled nothing reminiscent of the old stench that had been seeping into the cheeses, meats and breads. Not a whiff. A subsequent cheese taste-test upon returning home revealed only the delicious tang of swiss.
So congratulations everyone! Though we can’t be sure it was our extended discussion here that caused the change, I say we take full credit. 30+ complaints are darn hard to ignore.
Now if only they would alter that ridiculous no-bag policy.
UPDATE: Responses from other customers are mixed. Check out the comments!
DM…..
Sorry, but the Misses and I have to completely disagree here. Went over to a friends house on Friday night. He had some cheddar he bought at the DFM the day before. We started carving it to put on some burgers we were about to throw on an oblong green ceramic grill….and then the carnage.
It was awful. He took a bite, I took a bite….we looked at each other with the “OH MY GOD! WTF IS THAT?” face…..horrible. $6 of cheese in the trash.
Then today my wife went to go pick up some veggies, yogurt, yada yada yada….
The same thing…..the bag she used to bring home the food is “AIRING” out on the front porch of our stink infested bungalow.
Our patience is running as thin as ice in March on a pond in early March in Utah.
That’s really weird Left Wing. The BAG smells?
I swear we smelled nothing more than the normal faint fish smell near the seafood counters.
Maybe your friend accidentally bought head-cheese instead?
The bag smells. Very odd, indeed.
Gotta agree with Left Wing on this one. Tossed some cheese myself this week (manchego) which smelled terrible, and some bagged spinach had a rough smell to it too. I am to the point that if they bagged it, I’m no longer buying it.
I’ve also noticed lately that coming home from there, I smell! And I’m pretty sure I didn’t before I went.
I really want this place to be what it used to be, but it just isn’t happening.
I have been a couple of times in the last two months and although the overall smell is the building is a little bit better the chemical stink in the food is still there. We tried some items from the pastry counter that were boxed (so I know it’s not just the plastic film/bags – although those do seem to be the worst) and the smell was there. The worst from last week was the milk/cream. I even tried washing the outside of the containers before putting them in the fridge and they still stunk up the whole fridge.
My guess is sill that this smell comes from something they are (over) using control bugs or rodents – this particular smell is so chemical in nature I just can’t imagine what else it could be.
I think it’s interesting that you posted this because my husband and I hadn’t been in a bit and when we went last week we both commented that the store and everything we bought (bread, cheese, veggies) finally smelled normal again.
I guess “smells” are in the nose of the beholder, or maybe my olfactory nerve is totally shot because — to paraphrase Sgt. Schultz on Hogan’s Heroes– “I smell NOTHING!” I do, however, despise that chlorine bleach smell by the fish counter at Publix.
Speaking of smells, I’ve noticed a strong, unpleasant odor some mornings near my home just off Church Street (edge of northeast Decatur). Smells like something burning, almost like an incernator smell. Anyone else noticed this? And it’s not due to the repaving work we’ve had recently; it predates that.
sorry – that’s “incinerator”.
SteveC: Perhaps DeKalb Medical has an incinerator (or something similar) on-site?
thanks, Carl. I had thought that might be the case but was almost afraid to ask them.
About the smell at DFM – I’m not sure I smell a chemical smell so much as I smell something that smells like burning coffee beans. It’s definitely stinky and permeates the prepared foods and cheeses, but it doesn’t smell like chemicals to me. It reminds me of an office where I used to work, where a quarter inch of leftover coffee would sit in the pot all day and scorch, stinking up the whole office.
Hmmmm. Maybe they roast their coffee beans next to the bakery?
Thank you for the good news about the Decatur Farmers Market. I had actually quit going to the market because everything that was refrigerated smelled and tasted nasty, as did the bread. I had repeatedly written letters to Bob Blazer, the owner, with no response. I am glad that our responses have paid off.
I don’t think they have Mickey….just MHO.
Left Wing, not to belabor the point, but did you personally go and sniff the place out? There doesn’t seem to be one opinion on this anymore. SOMETHING has changed…it used to be near unanimous disapproval. More of a mix of opinions seems like an improvement to me.
DM….my wife went to the market. As she does every Sunday, shopping for the week.
She came home, walked into the kitchen….I go, “What is that smell?” She says, “I don’t know….are you stoned?” JK
I then go out to the car to get the groceries (note here…I always get the groceries out of the car. It’s one of the rules. I also unpack…it’s part of the deal
I start unpacking, realize the whole kitchen is reaking, sniff the bag, throw it outside to air out.
And here I am….
weird. haven’t really noticed it. but then i haven’t shopped in a few weeks. popped in friday night for bread and gouda. gouda tasted just fine.
My take: it’s better than before but it’s still not good enough.
While I don’t get bowled over by the raunchy funk just walking up to the entrance anymore, it’s still detectable in food and I still reek of YDFM stench when I get home… I still smell it very strongly when I step out into the parking lot — especially when I exhale — which means that it’s now taken up residence in my sinuses and/or nose.
The smell inundates any permeable surface. When I get home after a trip to YDFM, my clothes will continue to off-gas for a good while… I have a convertible, too, so it got plenty of airing out on the way home. I almost always have to go shower and change clothes just to get rid of the stink of going to the market. Publix stinks, too, between the general “Publix smell”, the silly perfume attempting to cover the ammonia produced by decomposing fish in the fish area and the patently offensive fabric softener/detergent aisle… but this is very different, my clothes don’t reek of Publix when I get home… and they shouldn’t smell like I got run over by an Orkin truck when I get home from the farmer’s market.
Also, I’ll add that whatever the smell is, it loves plastic. I’ve been making cheese lately and YDFM is one of the few places I can get pasteurized cream (instead of ultra-pasteurized which is the froo-it of the dev-e-all, by the way). The plastic bottles literally reek of the smell — even soap and water will not dispel the stench. Luckily they don’t stay in the fridge long enough to spread the wealth. So either the compound(s) is not soluble in soap and water or it’s permeated the outside layers of the plastic bottle… Either way, it’s awful — good thing it doesn’t make it all the way thru into the cream.
Let’s hope this is a work in progress and they’re still trying to address it. I give them some credit for trying to make an effort, I just hope they continue to make progress… Only time will tell… hopefully that Utah ice won’t melt thru before they’re done.
To reinforce what some folks have been saying about buying pre-bagged and what not. I agree – my purchase strategy has become VERY strict there over the past 2 years as the conditions have worsened. Things covered in food-grade wax or oil seem to pick it up worse than other things – like tomatoes or cucumbers stink worse than mushrooms, onions or lettuce…
My YDFM shopping rule is simple and strictly enforced: for me to buy something a non-fruit/veg that is not in a factory-sealed container, it has to have been made or placed out THAT DAY. Not yesterday, not two days ago, THAT DAY. One day (overnight stay?) seems to be enough to ruin the flavor of most of the foods for me.
If the cheese says packed on Oct 21, and it’s Oct. 22, I don’t buy it… ever. It’ll just taste like a congealed lump of chemicals when I get home. No matter how much that pack of chocolate cream cheese croissants screams and cries out for me to take it home, if it wasn’t packaged THAT DAY, it doesn’t go home with me. I can detect it occasionally in even the same-day baked goods (both at the counter and on the shelves), but I can usually overlook that small amount by focusing on the chocolate.
I never buy coffee there anymore, even same-day, it’s all tastes of the ick (2 years ago, it was a soapy-fish taste, now it’s just the chemical smell).
One odd item that doesn’t SEEM to pick it up is the flour. I can usually go with up to a week-old tub of flour and it still doesn’t befoul my cookies and breads.
Something odd that just occurred to me as I typed this: I can’t recall the restaurant food having the smell/taste problem — which I would have expected, honestly, since it’d stand to reason that they’d be using up the oldest, near-expiring food there, which I’d think would be the smelliest? Anyone noticed that special p-funk power in the restaurant munchables?
I’m another for thinking it is still very stinky!
I still have to wash my milk cartons and it doesn’t seem to actually help the smell. We also got an apple pie and it smelled fine, but tasted like that stink! I couldn’t eat it.
I was wondering if it is something in their water? I feel like I smell it in the ice.
Farmers Market IS NOT GOOD AGAIN! Boy was I disappointed. I read this blog and decided to go back to the market on October 30. I bought many $$$ worth of stuff. The Gruyere and Asiago cheeses I bought still had that disgusting refrigerator taste. Even breads such as the Naan and Tortillas that were packaged by the manufacturer were awful –the taste migrated through the plastic. I wish everyone would send a letter to the owner, Bob Blazer, and tell him about this problem.
Wow Mickey…sorry you didn’t have a similar experience to mine. I guess its still very hit or miss in terms of food. All I can say was on the day I was there, it didn’t smell and none of my food tasted funky.
I’m not a big fan of YDFM breads, so I cannot endorse them either way.
WARNING! Farmer’s Market Sells Rotten Milk
A purchased a gallon of organic milk on Friday. It was sour and had big chunks in it. I took it back the next day (with my receipt-I had spent nearly $80 the day before). The shelf on it was 1-17-09. I stood in the customer service area for about 15 minutes when a “punk” with a coach name tag showed up and pointed out the NO RETURNS on the receipt. I left the milk, my receipt. The Peachtree Ind Blvd Farmer’s MKT went under recently. These clowns need to discover customer service or they too could lose it all.
I will never again purchase any packaged item here. I have previously purchased sliced cheese that tasted like mold. I guess they don’t clean the blades too often.
Buyers Beware: on the bottom of the receipt it says NO RETURNS.
It is impossible to know if sealed items like milk are rotten.
Deb, there’s another thread on this this site titled “farmers market makes it even harder to justify going there”, and the new no returns wording on the receipt is the main topic. The one big open question was whether the policy would be enforced in the event somebody tried to return a bad product…. Judging by your experience, it seems the answer is that it will be enforced!