Amusing conversation at the farmers' market

cattitude and I went to the Bellevue Farmers' Market this morning. One of the vendors sells salmon: fresh, Indian-style smoked, or lox, and they identify the kind of salmon they started with. We were chatting with them in the course of buying some sockeye lox, and cattitude observed that a lot of people around here don't know what lox is.

Woman standing nearby: How can people not know what lox is?
Me: A lot of people think lox just means smoked salmon.
Her: Doesn't it?

I told her that lox is brine-cured, and what she's thinking of is smoked salmon, sometimes called Nova Scotia salmon or novy. Then, looking at her expression, assured her that "smoked salmon" would get her what she wanted. She then said that the Union Square market* is overwhelming, and I agreed that it can be, adding that I like it, but that when we lived in New York I mostly used the smaller Greenmarket in my neighborhood, though I have schlepped apples home on the subway.

*The market in Union Square is the oldest and largest of the New York City Greenmarkets**, which get New Yorkers fresh produce and other good things, and help people keep farming in the NYC area. Wednesday and Saturday are particularly good.

**Greenmarket is a trademark, created because "farmers market" was being used to just mean any greengrocer, and they wanted to identify that these stands were actually run by the farmers—and, later, fishers and bakers. There's really good salmon here in the Seattle area, but I miss the variety of fish, and the fresh blue crabs. (And I still have to work to not say "greenmarket" for the market here in Bellevue, or the one in Harvard Square, which are the same kind of market but not through the same organization.)