St. Lawrence Market

April 2016 - Toronto ON


We headed out to St. Lawrence Market on Easter Saturday, big mistake, bad enough it was Saturday, but a holiday weekend? And Friday and Sunday everywhere was closed!!! It was a zoo.
I had brought my camera but it was almost impossible and John just wanted to get out of there.
So we went back on Friday, what a difference six days made, it was so quiet.

We were going to take the shuttle and enjoy the walk over to the market but decided we would probably buy too much so the car was put to use instead.

So these photos are from both days. But on Friday we took our time and explored areas we never had the luxury of poking in when we worked and rushed here on weekends.

The view outside the market looking west along Front St. The Flatiron (Gooderham) building is dwarfed by the towers behind it.


The left side of the street maintains its historical look while the right side is modern condos and the financial district further along.

Their website has a wonderful interactive timeline of its history.

The St. Lawrence Market is one of Toronto's oldest institutions, technically dating as far back as 1803 when Governor Peter Hunter designated the area south of King between Jarvis and Church and down to Front the "Market Block." Former iterations of the South Market even housed Toronto's City Hall prior to the construction of E.J. Lennox's version on Queen just east of Bay Street.

So busy on a weekend, there is a cop directing traffic. The street photo above is up the street from here, you can see an orange cab turning the corner.

Now to the good stuff!! But before we start here is a photo from the Toronto Archives dated 1900s.

There are two floors, so let's start downstairs. As you step in there is a wonderful smell of fresh flowers.

A Mexican shop.

Interesting spot, ended up buying chia seeds, hemp seeds, vanilla beans, mushy peas (go figure).

This store had imported products from around the world, I saw Mexican, Italian, Indian and even a tin (really???) of Scottish haggis. Only bought some coconut water in here.

Home grown marmalade.

Mexico

New Orleans - gotta get some!

Lots of food stalls if you are hungry, serving up most things.

A Ukrainian shop. Gorgeous eggs!

Vegetable spread?

Who knew there was a bulk store tucked away in the corner? Walnuts, matcha powder, tomato sauce, vanilla essence, salad topping with cranberries, nuts and various seeds, cocoa made their way into our bags.

European food stall.

We stopped for a smoothie, Green Squared for me - apples, pineapple, kale and mint. John's was strawberry, apple, kale and ginger.

Across from there we picked up two bunches of kale, parsley, mint leaves, baby spinach and bok choy.

Pierogies to go.

Easily distracted, how about some jewelry. By the way we are still on the bottom floor.

Oh look, a mural!

OK finally we are upstairs. Some stuffed jalapenos.

This floor houses many, many meat counters, fish, cheese, bagels, mustard, sausages and fruit and vegetable stalls.

I'll have 3 hot Italian, 3 Guinness and 3 bratwurst.

This was taken on the Saturday, on Friday there was hardly anyone around.

John is demanding requesting that we get what we came for pears, kiwis, lemons, celery, peaches, bananas, and ginger. Also some liver.

He grumpily happily agrees to let me finish walking through the upstairs. The bags are heavy.

I want to try this place for lunch sometime. They have another location in an office tower near the ACC.

Last purchase, sea asparagus, after the vendor let me try it.

Samphire or Salicorne (Latin) is also known as Glasswort, Marsh Grass, Sea Beans, and Sea Asparagus it is a sea vegetable which can be found growing in abundance on shorelines, marshy shallows and on salty mudflats and along with Sea Purslane is very popular with coastal foragers.

I am going to saute it with garlic, onions and kale.

Here's a photo of our loot in the counter, most of it, some had already been put away when I thought to get a picture.