Hocking Phony Baked Goods

A lesson in ethics at the Farmer’s Market.

Photo by Shirqille Tisi on Unsplash

It started simply. I needed a summer job in college and the owner of a farmer’s market stand needed help. It never dawned on me that I would navigate the biggest ethical dilemma of my life at twenty-one.

My employer was a large woman in size, personality and desperation as she struggled to make enough money baking for farmer’s markets to keep her house in rural Virginia. Recently divorced with a young teenage daughter, she supported herself by selling quality baked goods in the Washington DC suburbs.

Her food was delicious.

Muffins moist and flavorful. Golden-crusted pies. I often brought them home for my family and friends, proud of my sales.

When I was first hired for the position that summer, I met Mrs. C before dawn in different parking lots to sell her muffins and pies. I arranged the tables. I displayed her wares. I hung the “HOMEMADE” sign on the awning.

And, I unsuspectingly sold previously-frozen Sara Lee pies and re-wrapped Otis Spunkmeyer muffins.

After a month at the markets, I was invited to work a few afternoons a week at her house to assist with the actual baking. I relished this trusted position because the hours were good and few people worked both “in the field” and behind the scenes.

I quickly understood why she didn’t want the front-of-the-house workers to meet the ones in the back.

In her garage-turned-bakery, two worlds collided — that of skilled baker with cunning counterfeiter. In the walk-in freezers sat a few legitimate homemade pies alongside boxes of frozen ones, ready to be thawed and “enhanced” with egg-wash and finger-crimped edges.

What had once been an above-board bakery business, had turned into a darker industrial machine when my employer needed to increase productivity to save her house but was unable to bake from scratch enough items to meet demand. 

Used tea-bags dried above the sink in her kitchen waiting to be reused in her meager efforts to save money.

This was a crossroads between survival and ethics. Did I want to participate?

You see, there are strict Farmer’s Market rules that reasonably require a baker to make food from scratch. There is an understandable expectation that signs reading “Homemade” should mean just that.

I felt incredible compassion for this woman and her daughter. I wanted to support her and her efforts. But late one Friday night getting ready for the weekend, as I unwrapped the muffins and rewrapped them in clear plastic before applying her business labels, I began to question my integrity.

This final straw made my decision clear.

I arrived at work one afternoon and was urgently instructed to remove all of the contraband in the garage and take it to a back bedroom where Mrs. C’s daughter was covering the piles with blankets.

On my second trip to the back, I noticed a car coming down the long driveway and then two very serious individuals approaching the house. As they passed a front window to the door, I was tiptoeing through the kitchen with an armload of boxes.

The Farmer’s Market police.

If one hangs a sign that says HOMEMADE, those pies sure as hell better be homemade.

Makes sense.

With my anxiety through the roof, as both a rule-follower and people-pleaser, I completed my last trip to the back of the house, grabbed my keys and headed toward a side door.

I recall one last encounter with Mrs. C as I made my exit that included both a shaming rebuke, “You’re going to leave me too?” and an eye-roll as I said, “I’m sorry.” I may have even muttered, “Good luck” but I was practically running, afraid she would come flying out after me.

It was a long drive home on two-lane country roads.

Eventually, my speed and my heart rate decelerated but I stayed swimming in utter bafflement, both at what had just happened and that the circumstances weren’t clear cut to me. There was the obvious ethical breach and the despairing Jean Valjean-like attempts to provide.

Even though I quit that day, I didn’t move away from the wrestling in the tension. I stayed open to the possibility that struggling to survive lead to crazy things. I was willing to consider the messiness. And I’ve been dirty ever since.

Oh, and if you ever happen upon a frozen Sara Lee pie, they’re delicious. Cook as instructed and I’ll show you how to doctor up the edges