Oxford’s 2024 Produce of the Year: A flavorful vegetable from a local grower

For the final column of 2024, it’s time to announce my pick for Oxford’s local produce of the year. What locally grown produce made an especially big impact on me during this past year of shopping weekly at Oxford Farmers Market and MOON Co-op Grocery?

Before naming the 2024 produce of the year, I want to give a shout-out to all of the vendors at Oxford Farmers Market, plus a reminder that it’s held every Saturday throughout the year. Our farmers market is one of the few in the Midwest that operates year-round outdoors, including straight through winter weather.

Oxford’s weekly farmers market started about 45 years ago, originally in a Church Street parking lot, then for two decades at Stewart School. When the school was demolished in 2005 for Stewart Square shopping area, the Farmers Market moved to its current location Uptown, although a few vendors met for a while at the old Talawanda High School.

Oxford’s Farmers Market more tightly controls its vendors than typical farmers markets. Many “local” farmstands and farmers markets resell products acquired elsewhere, such as from out-of-town wholesalers.

Vendors tell me that farmers markets in Cincinnati attract bigger crowds, but Oxford’s attracts more people who actually buy rather than look. However, as the cold, dark winter sets in, and with Miami students and many staff gone until late January, sales are much lower this time of year, as they are for all of us involved with small businesses in Oxford. 

I’ve tried to solicit comments from the vendors about why they stand outside in the cold and dark every Saturday morning in the winter. Responses include: “Where else would I be on a Saturday morning?” “It’s a social event for us.” “It’s cool being here.” “You’re a writer, make up anything you want me to have said.” Indoor space for the winter market has been offered over the years to our intrepid vendors, but they prefer the great outdoors.

This is the ninth year that I’ve chosen a produce of the year for Oxford. Previous winners include Johnson Family Farm haskaps in 2016, pawpaws in 2017, local mushrooms in 2018, lettuce from Harv Roehling’s Locust Run Farm and Kristi Hutchinson’s 5 Oaks Organics in 2019, shallots from Craig and Sharon Harkrider’s Stoney Hedgerow in 2020, Jennifer Bayne’s 7 Wonders Farm ginger in 2021, Bonnie Gean’s microgreens in 2022 and Charles Geraci’s raspberries in 2023.

This year’s choice for produce of the year is Stoney Hedgerow’s winter squash. Before Thanksgiving, I wrote that a “pumpkin” pie tastes better if prepared with one of their squash, and I’m pleased to report that a number of people told me they did it, with positive results.

Our household is especially fond of Stoney Hedgerow’s Honeynut squash, a cross between a butternut squash and a buttercup squash, with a sweet flavor and extremely high level of beta-carotene. The Honeynut is relatively small — roughly 6 inches long and 2 inches in diameter, with a bit of a bulge at one end — and suitable as a side dish at dinner.

I cut the squash in half lengthwise, spoon out the seeds, place the two halves in a pan with a small amount of water or orange juice, and microwave for 10 minutes.

Stoney Hedgerow offers many other exotic varieties of squash, such as Autumn Frost, Red Kuri and Starry Night. The Harkriders can match your preferences with their many varieties.

Exotic squash often has an exotic history. For example, Wikipedia offers a 577-word history of Honeynut. The cultivar was first developed by Cornell Professor Emeritus Richard Robinson during the 1980s, but he did not make it available to the public. A quarter-century later, Cornell Professor Michael Mazourek resumed development on Honeynut, but for several years, only one location in the entire country had access to it, a farm-to-table restaurant Blue Hill associated with Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture, a nonprofit farm and education center in Pocantico Hills, New York. Honeynut was finally made available to the public in 2015.

Several local vendors will be at the farmers market every Saturday in all sorts of weather. So bundle up, inhale some cold air, and take advantage of free parking through the holidays and into January. But if you can’t get to Oxford Farmers Market on Saturday morning, MOON Co-op Grocery has a wide selection of Stoney Hedgerow squash and is open every day.

James Rubenstein is president of the Board of Directors for the Oxford Free Press and professor emeritus of geography at Miami University.