Guide to Morzine market

Intro

Let’s be fair, supermarket vs Morzine market, the names are the wrong way round. Super is shopping outside, from producers you can meet and talk to and shopping in season too. In an active-oriented resort, shouldn’t we all be making sure we are running on the best fuel?

As a bonus the Morzine market can cost less than the supermarket if we go to the right stalls. As a rule of thumb, these are the stalls that are here year-round rather than the additional ones that come for the tourist seasons.

The Morzine market is also, in most cases, a lesser cost to the environment – mostly no packaging, less food miles, less water used in production and some suppliers are organic too, where indicated.

Our favourite farm stalls at Morzine market

Labelled 1 on the photo. GAEC le Potager Des Fourches – Fessy  The stall is near the shopping trollies (justifiably more expensive than the supermarket). The farm located near Thonon (about 40 minutes) they mainly sell vegetables. All amazing, all organic, try the spaghetti squash in autumn, the tomatoes in summer – if they have any of their own tomato sauce (rather than coulis) you need to try that too. We also love the carrots and fresh salad from here. The produce is carefully labelled so you know from where it comes, however, most of it is from their own fields and says ‘Fessy’ on the label when so).

Labelled 3 on the photo. GAEC Les Places Famille Boisier / Ferme Auberge de Fréterolles At the back corner of the market opposite the flower stall. Often has the longest queue because it has the cheapest best cheese! In the summer they run the excellent restaurant ‘Ferme de Freterolles’ at the end of the Valley Du Manche (about 15 minutes away!). In the winter, they take the herds down over the side of the mountain to near Samoens. Expect a big queue when you pay these guys a visit. Their prices are less than supermarkets – here you can mainly find local cheese, honey, butter and eggs.

There are other small farm stalls from Morzine and Les Gets for you to try and all food is a matter of taste and mine may not be the same as yours, so go nuts!  Let us know your favourites.

Our favourite reseller at Morzine market

Labelled 8 on the photo. The stall opposite the post office. Here you get a much wider choice as produce as produce is also imported. What it lacks in seasonality, it makes up for in the lack of packaging and price, often cheaper per KG than the supermarket.  They even sell produce that you can’t get elsewhere, like padron peppers mmmmm. We get the bulk of our fruit and veg here.

Not labelled on the photo. The BIG cheese stall that is parallel to Carrefour, is also great value. Look out for the ‘sac du patron’, a selection of 1kg of odds and ends of cheese for €20!

Other specialists worth a mention

Labelled 4 on the photo. The bread stall (next to the above)

Labelled 5 on the photo. The fisherman from Lake Geneva (Lac Leman), the price might be high however that is what you pay for fish caught directly from such a clean and sustainably used source.

Labelled 6 on the photo. Chez Paul has been making traditional produce such as saucisson all his life and selling it here too. A nice chap to support, expensive however for a justified reason of great local produce.

Not labelled on the photo. J & M Atelier. A home bakery here in Morzine, the cinnamon bun is the best I have had and I have had a few ha ha.

Not labelled on the photo. The flower stall also sell fruit and veg from the local pick your own at the Abbey.

Resellers/merchants

Labelled 8 on the photo. Really nice owners, €10 paying by card minimum otherwise cash.

So how does pricing compare at Morzine market

In all honesty, that is the most exciting part, don’t you agree? What you pay is essentially the ‘market price’: great harvest of onions = price goes down!

We mainly shop for vegetables at the market, so here is roughly on average what you could expect to pay in 2020 based on the farms in Fessy and Arthaz vs buying Bio (organic) from the supermarket – note that you can’t get as many Bio options in Carrefour, plus non-recyclable packaging waste for supermarket purchases is way higher!

Not that this is what it is all about, however as you can see some produce is even cheaper in the market – the ultimate WIN WIN!

Recipes 100% local and 100% seasonal

Shopping seasonally in the winter in the mountains does not leave you with a lot of choice since the ground is mostly covered in snow/frozen which makes it difficult to harvest vegetables and graze lives stock.

You soon realise why is that so many local dishes like tartiflette, raclette, berthoud, farcement, beignets, fondu, crozets etc are made from goods with a long life, stored and produced in other seasons.

This is why come spring time the market is such a treat to get freshness back into our diet and sample this years crops.

Anytime : Crepes easy as 1,2,3

Ingredients

• 1 00 g flour (opposite stall 1)
• 2 eggs (stall 3)
• 3 00 ml milk (Can buy in Carrefour, comes from the farm in St Jean D’Aulps)
• A little bit of butter too! (stall 3)

Method

1. Put milk, eggs, flour in a bowl, whisk until smooth, about 30 seconds by hand.
2. Put a teaspoon of butter in the frying pan and melt.
3. Ladle enough pancake mixture into the pan to cover the bottom and pour any excess back in the bowl.
4. Cook until it turns from liquid to solid, flip and cook quickly on the other side.

Spring : Poached eggs on steamed young stem spinach & toast

Ingredients

• Eggs (the fresher the easier to poach) (stall 3)
• Handful of new season ‘jenue pousse’ spinach (stall 1)
• Bread  (stall 4)
• A little bit of seasoning

Method

1. Boil two small sauce pans of water, turn down to a simmer. Crack the egg into a cup or like. Create a whirlpool into the simmering water by stirring and plop the egg into the middle.
2. Put the spinach in a sieve above the other pan and steam until wilted.
3. Cut the bread and toast.
4. Season, assemble and enjoy.