Market eats: what does $20 buy you at Jamison's Trash and Treasure Market?

There is something decidedly old-school and utterly basic about the Trash and Treasure Market Jamison – and I mean that as the highest compliment.

People are simply selling stuff in a carpark. No elaborate setups or curated tables. Just folks trying to make a few dollars, clear out a shed, or share something they have grown, baked or made.

Good-looking Asian vegetables piled high. Talented home cooks sharing their family recipes. Plants. Honey. I even saw chickens. And my personal favourite, the older blokes selling random treasures that would otherwise end up in landfill. Empty glass jars. Old tools. Mechanical parts. Things whose purpose I can only guess at.

Walking past these stalls reminded me of my grandfather.

Every Sunday, he would front up at the equivalent market at Kingsford in Sydney, until he was too frail to attend. To my young eyes, his table was piled high with what looked like old junk. Cables, crockery, car parts and all manner of mysterious objects. He supplemented his pension by selling things he no longer needed.

A product of wartime Russia, he never threw anything away. If something broke, he fixed it. If he did not need it, he figured someone else might. The same approach applied to food. Nothing was wasted.

Long before the phrase existed, he was living the circular economy.

Walking through the market, I found joy in this old-school atmosphere.

Like my grandfather, many traders still prefer cash. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that before I arrived.

After frantically checking my wallet and rummaging through the car, I managed to scrape together exactly $20.

What does $20 buy you for breakfast at the Trash and Treasure Markets Jamison?

That became my challenge.

Kay’s Food

My first stop cost $3.

For that princely sum, I got a piping hot khao porridge wrapped in banana leaf. When I opened it, I found a comforting mix of mung beans and pork.

It was creamy and sweet.

Soft, glutinous and wonderfully wholesome, definitely the type of food that warms you from the inside out.

Kay runs the stall herself, serving Thai home cooking. Takeaway containers filled with goodies, including Thai sausages, pork larb, mango sticky rice, and various forms of jerky, are all available to take away.

Yeden’s Dumplings

My biggest spend of the day was $10 at Yeden’s Dumplings.

The sizeable queue suggested it would be money well spent.

Pork, beef and vegetarian dumplings were available, but there was one catch … no mixing and matching. Commitment was required.

Thankfully, a fellow market-goer standing beside me volunteered her recommendation.

“The vegetarian ones are my favourite.”

Decision made.

Eight generously sized Bhutanese dumplings later, I was very glad I took her advice.

The dough was excellent and the filling featured cheese, raw onion and plenty of fresh flavour. Served with a spicy, house-made chilli sauce, they delivered unexpected complexity.

They were bloody delicious.

In fact, they might be some of the best dumplings in Canberra.

Donut Factory

The lure and smell of fresh, hot cinnamon donuts were strong, so I handed over $5 for six.

Some things in life don’t need improving, and eating warm, sugary donuts in the sunshine is one of them.

Simple. Perfect.

So, I had a three-course meal for $18! Some of the best value money I have spent on food this year! And I still had $2 left in cash, which I dropped into one of the donation buckets positioned at the market entrances.

The Rotary Club of Belconnen has run the market for more than 50 years, raising millions of dollars for community projects in the process, and I hope they continue for 50 more.

Trash and Treasure Market Jamison is on every Sunday from 6:30 am to 12:30 pm in the Jamison Centre carpark in Macquarie.

Original Article published by Sophia Brady on Region Canberra.

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