I used to go to the Boulder farmer’s market with my parents on Saturdays when I was a little kid. It was the perfect was to spend a morning with the family. After going to the Ithaca farmer’s market, I was immediately taken back to those old day of roaming around the market with my older sister looking for some sweets while my mom and dad were busy buying produce. It showed me how different the markets were. The one in Boulder is massive as it has grown along with the population over the years, bigger than the market in Ithaca, although that is to be expected given the difference in the populations of the cities, and along with that, the other characteristic that stood out to me was how culturally different each were.

Colorado is many miles away from here, in the southwest corner of the country, and Ithaca is about as far northeast as one can get. The first thing I noticed was how different the produce was at each market. Ithaca’s market highlighted some of the staples of the northeastern United States: beets, eggplant, fennel, and parsnips. Walk into Boulder’s market on any given day and one can expect to find too many chilies to count and a ton of tomatoes and corn. It is from these differences one can see how culturally different the regions are based on their background. Colorado getting most of its Spanish influence from its neighbors of New Mexico and Arizona from when it was first settled in the late 18^th to early 19^th century.  Ithaca derived its cultural identity from the English and Dutch settlements in the 15^th and 16^th centuries along with the native American tribes that inhabited the region before the Dutch and English. These differences are very apparent from not only the produce, but also from their products up for sale all the way up to their layouts, Boulder opting for a more open western layout and Ithaca opting for a more cozy and protective layout. They are both great markets, I just thought it was interesting to note how different, culturally, the markets are.