The farmers' markets of the Banat

The Banat's farmers' markets are not in Timișoara. They are in towns like Sânnicolau Mare and villages like Voiteg, where producers sell what they grow. The prices are low, the sellers are old, and the market is a calculation of weather and survival.

The Piața Iosefin in Timișoara gets the crowds on a Saturday morning. But the Banat's farmers' markets do not stop at the city limits. Head out on the DN6 towards Sânnicolau Mare or the DN59 towards Voiteg and you find the same wooden tables, the same dented scales, the same plastic basins of tomatoes. What changes is the produce: the villages sell what they grow, and they grow what the soil and the season allow.

The market in Sânnicolau Mare sits behind the town hall, a short walk from the bus station. On a Wednesday in late July it opens at six. By seven there are perhaps twenty producers. A woman from Cenad sells peppers – white, green, and a long pale yellow one she calls 'ardei de grădină'. The price is 8 lei a kilogram. She has brought them in a wheelbarrow. There is no stall fee; producers pay 5 lei a day to the town hall. The market has no permanent roof, only a few awnings. When it rains, trading stops.

The produce is plain. Tomatoes are uneven, some split. The garlic is smaller than the supermarket kind but keeps better. A man from Teremia Mare sells cucumbers, pickling size, for 5 lei a kilogram. He says the drought in June cut his crop by half. He does not complain; he states it. The cucumbers are firm and cool, kept in a shaded crate. A neighbouring stall sells eggs – 1 leu each, or 10 lei for a dozen. The yolks are deep orange. The seller, from Nerău, has fifty hens and two geese. The geese are not for sale.

The market at Voiteg

Voiteg is a village on the DN59, about 30 kilometres south of Timișoara. Its market is smaller than Sânnicolau Mare's. It operates on Tuesday and Friday mornings in a square beside the Orthodox church. On a Friday in early September there are eight producers. One sells plums – tămâioase, blue and oval, 4 lei a kilogram. Another has walnuts in their shells, 15 lei a kilogram. A third has honey: acacia, linden, and a dark sunflower honey that crystallises in the jar. A 900-gram jar costs 25 lei. The beekeeper, from Birda, keeps forty hives. He says the acacia yield was poor this year because of late frost.

The market at Voiteg has no cold storage. The honey is kept in a wooden box lined with newspaper. The plums are in plastic crates. A woman sells homemade cheese – telemea, white and salty, 25 lei a kilogram. She makes it from sheep's milk, not cow's. The sheep are from her own flock of thirty. She sells only on Fridays. By ten in the morning she has sold half. The rest she takes home. She says the town hall does not charge a fee, but there is no water tap and no toilet. The church lets sellers use its tap for drinking water.

The market is not a lifestyle. It is a calculation: what will keep, what will sell, and what the weather has left.

Specialities of the region

The Banat has a few products that appear in markets across the region. One is the 'roșie de Banat' – a large, ribbed tomato, pink when ripe, with thin skin and a sweet, low-acid flavour. It is not a protected name. It is sold in Sânnicolau Mare, Voiteg, and in the Timișoara markets. In late August, a kilogram costs 6 to 10 lei. It does not travel well. The best ones are eaten within a day.

Another is the 'ardei lung de Banat' – a long, tapered pepper, pale green to red, mild but with a faint bitterness. It is used for pickling and for the pepper paste called 'zacuscă'. In the market at Sânnicolau Mare, a woman sells zacuscă in jars – 15 lei for a 500-gram jar. She makes it with roasted peppers, aubergine, onion, and sunflower oil. She does not add preservatives. The jars are sealed with metal lids and a layer of wax. She says it keeps for a year in a cool cellar.

Plums are the region's quiet staple. The Banat has many old orchards, and in September the markets fill with varieties: 'Tuleu gras', 'Stanley', 'Bistrițean'. They are sold for eating and for țuică – the plum brandy distilled in villages. A kilogram of plums costs 3 to 5 lei. In the market at Voiteg, a man sells țuică in unlabelled bottles – 10 lei for a 0.5-litre bottle, or 20 lei for a litre. He says it is 40 degrees. He does not sell to anyone who looks under eighteen. The bottle has no stamp. It is illegal to sell homemade spirits without excise, but the market tolerates it. The police rarely come.

Walnuts are another seasonal speciality. In October, families bring sacks to the market. A kilogram of shelled walnuts costs 40 to 50 lei. In the shell, 15 to 20 lei. The walnuts from the Banat are small and oily, good for cakes. The main variety is 'Jupanesti'. A seller in Sânnicolau Mare says her tree is sixty years old and gives 100 kilograms a year. She sells half and keeps half for her family.

The economics of a village stall

A producer at Sânnicolau Mare market might bring 50 kilograms of vegetables. At an average price of 5 lei per kilogram, that is 250 lei in revenue. The stall fee is 5 lei. Transport by car or tractor costs 20 to 50 lei. A day at the market is ten hours. The net is perhaps 150 lei. That is less than the daily wage in a Timișoara factory. Many producers are pensioners. They sell to supplement a pension of 800 to 1,200 lei a month. For them, the market is not a business; it is survival.

The young are absent. In Sânnicolau Mare and Voiteg, the sellers are mostly over sixty. Their children have moved to Timișoara or abroad. A woman from Teremia Mare says her son works in Germany and sends money. She sells eggs and cheese because she has nothing else to do. She does not expect her grandchildren to take over the stall. The market will shrink as her generation does.

There is also competition from supermarkets. In Sânnicolau Mare, a Profi store opened in 2016. It sells tomatoes year-round at 7 lei a kilogram. They are Dutch or Turkish, uniform and tasteless. But they are cheap and available. The market only wins on flavour and season. In July and August, the market is full. In February, it is empty. A few sellers offer stored apples or pickled vegetables, but the choice is thin. The market is a seasonal event, not a year-round institution.

The town halls do not invest. In Voiteg, the market square has no roof, no benches, no lighting. A seller says the mayor promised a covered market ten years ago. Nothing happened. The EU has funded some rural market upgrades in Romania, but not here. The Banat's markets are not on any tourist trail. They are not in guidebooks. They are simply where people buy food.

To visit, go on a weekday morning. Sânnicolau Mare: Wednesday and Saturday, from 6am to 11am. Voiteg: Tuesday and Friday, from 6am to 10am. Take cash – no one accepts cards. A kilogram of tomatoes is 6 to 10 lei, a kilogram of plums 3 to 5 lei, a jar of honey 25 lei. The market is a place to buy, not to browse. The sellers are not there to chat; they are there to sell. If you ask about the weather, they will tell you. If you ask for a discount, they will refuse. The price is the price. That is the market.