EACH morning, produce floods into San Francisco from some of the nation’s most spectacular farmland  Napa’s hilly vineyards, the sun-baked orchards and green fields of the eastern valleys, the Pacific Coast’s misty pasture lands. San Franciscans scoop it up with barely a thought, as if excellent fresh food were simply a California birthright.

Travelers, too, can share in the bounty. Nearly every day year-round, there is a farmers’ market to check out, offering not only plenty to taste and buy, but sights, sounds and people-watching. Even if it’s not practical to construct a perfect salad back at the hotel room or tote heirloom tomatoes home on an airplane, the markets of San Francisco are worth visiting as a spectacle in themselves.

The markets come into their full glory starting in May, with the arrival of stone fruits like cherries, peaches and pluots  a juicy cross between a plum and an apricot  adding to seasonal vegetables and the year-round fare of olive oil, organic honey, goat and cow’s milk cheese, greens, walnuts, beef and more.

Because most vendors provide samples to taste, the markets offer opportunities to learn some fine points  the difference, for example, between a Seascape strawberry and an Albion strawberry. They also offer a chance to mingle with San Francisco’s diverse populace  all of whom are united, it seems, in a common appreciation for food.