The “Dispersed” Market: Trading Vegetables in Bamberg’s Vegetable-Growing District

Abstract

Based on field observations, interviews, personal websites and news publications, the article takes a detailed look at the trade in Bamberg vegetables in a traditional vegetable-growing district. I ask the following questions: why, despite logistical and transportation inconveniences, buying vegetables from the producer is in demand and popular in today’s Germany? what can the convenience of the supermarket be opposed to? and what can sellers who have grown their own produce offer the sophisticated resident of a wealthy German city? The collected field material shows that the sale/purchase of vegetables in the stalls of the “dispersed market” occupies a certain niche in the consumption culture of the city dwellers and realizes a specific, emotionally loaded purchasing experience, which speaks of the eventization of trade. This different experience of consumption is purposefully constructed as if it is rooted in tradition and referring to some idealized past and notions of homeland, as well as to the concept of urban authenticity.