The Markets of New Orleans: What to Taste, and the Month to Taste It

New Orleans eats seasonally in a way most American cities gave up decades ago. Ask when the crawfish are good and you will get a precise answer; ask in the wrong month and you will get a lecture. This is what the city's markets sell, and when.

The markets worth your morning

• The French Market — a market on this stretch of the Quarter since the late 18th century, now a mix of produce stalls, prepared food, crafts and a flea market at the downriver end.
• Crescent City Farmers Market — a nonprofit network that runs on different days in different neighbourhoods. Days and sites do change; check the current schedule before you set an alarm.
• St. Roch Market — an 1875 public market hall downriver of the Quarter, restored and reopened as a food hall of independent counters.
• The Saturday morning Vietnamese market in New Orleans East — a legacy of the community that settled here after 1975, and one of the earliest starts in the city. Go at dawn or do not go.

Beignets and chicory coffee — any month, ideally 6am

At the upriver corner of the French Market, Café du Monde has been selling three square beignets under a snowdrift of powdered sugar and café au lait cut with chicory since 1862. It runs close to around the clock. The trick is not which month but which hour: come before the tour groups, sit at an outside table, and accept that you will wear some of it.

Creole tomatoes — June

Grown in the Mississippi River parishes below the city, thin-skinned and almost aggressively sweet. The French Market hosts a Creole Tomato Festival most years in June, and for a few weeks every po-boy shop and neighbourhood restaurant leans on them. Eat one sliced, salted, on white bread, and understand why the city makes a fuss.

Crawfish — roughly February to May

Boiled crawfish is a seasonal ritual, not a year-round menu item. The season generally runs from late winter into early summer, peaking in spring, when sacks appear outside corner stores and the price per pound drops. Look for the boil pots, follow the smell of cayenne and citrus, and learn to pinch the tail and suck the head before you are told to.

The muffuletta — any month

The round sesame loaf layered with mortadella, salami, provolone and marinated olive salad was created by a Sicilian grocery on Decatur Street serving French Market workers. The Italian grocery tradition around the market is still where to look for it — though individual shops open, close and rebuild here, so confirm before you make a special trip. Order a half. It is enough.

Satsumas and citrus — November to December

Louisiana satsumas arrive as the weather finally cools: seedless, loose-skinned, absurdly sweet. Farmers market tables fill with them alongside Meyer lemons and kumquats, and it is the one time of year the city's produce beats its restaurants.

Sno-balls — summer only

Shaved so fine it is closer to snow than ice, drenched in syrup, sometimes with condensed milk. Stands are seasonal by definition, generally opening in spring and closing in autumn, and every New Orleanian has a stand they are unreasonable about.

Tip: Go to the markets hungry but shop last. Buy pralines, Creole seasoning and hot sauce on your final morning — then eat the beignets on your first, so you have five days to go back.