A. Russo & Son’s: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugli

A small selection of the myriad fruits and vegetables available for unnervingly low prices at Russo's.

 

Located on an unassuming stretch of road in nearby (but sometimes inconvenient) Watertown, A. Russo & Sons Marketplace is the Boston area’s de facto hidden foodie market that no one knows about that everyone knows about. It’s hip, but also cramped enough to discourage the patronage of shoppers who aren’t interested in bumping elbows with a woman loading a few matnakash into her cart, or a husband-and-wife duo fumbling with armfuls of carrots and banana flowers. Russo’s is an enormous produce market sidled up against a diverse takeout restaurant bordered by a moat of potted flowers, and it’s all very, very cheap. It’s a great place for a family to go to stretch each dollar they spend on food. Not coincidentally, it’s also a great place to go to contemplate your creeping feeling of unease over the system which produces that food: why, exactly, are we able to purchase a pound of fruit from Jamaica for less than it costs us to ride the bus to get here?