Borough Market

I went to one of my favorite places in London last week, Borough Market.
To say that Borough Market is a farmer's market is a little like saying Buckingham Palace is a house. Sure in the strict definition, Borough Market is a market place but it is unlike any I have seen. The stalls are only open on Friday and Saturday, the stores surrounding the market are usually open Mon-Saturday. It is extremely crowded on Saturdays, so I like going on Friday mornings before I take quite a few visitors to Borough Market because it is impressive, especially if you are a foodie. Located at the south end of London Bridge, it is a collection of market stalls surrounded by more permanent structures on the outside. The outside buildings house restaraunts, speciality food shops, pubs, etc.

I really like wandering around the different shops. One of my favorite shops is Neal's Yard Dairy. They have like a zillion different cheeses. They seem to hire quite a few Americans, perhaps that is why everyone in there is so friendly. They will let you taste every cheese they have out and it is a good way to try something you haven't had before or compare different brands of the same type of cheese. I always come away with something new there.
This time, in addition to about 4 different cheeses, I brought home a jellied quince thing. It was really like a firm slice of jello. The idea is you have a bit of this to kind of clean your palate a bit in between strong cheeses. I bought two different slices, one very sweet and the other was a little less sweet. I am not sure that it is something I will buy every time, but it was something interesting to try.

While I was at the huge vegie stand, I noticed a bunch of kids (teens) holding clipboards and listening very intently to a man in a suit. I got to talking to the man in the suit and he worked for Jamie Oliver (the Naked Chef) and his 15organization. 15 is a foundation Jamie Oliver set up in the UK to teach underpriviledged youth about food in general but restaraunting (is that a word?) in particular. The hope is that after going through this program, the kids can get jobs in restaraunt kitchens and have a trade. These kids were in the 15 program. The man was teaching them about the different kinds of produce and other different food items. Their assignment was to write down the name of 5 items in different categories (vegetable, fruit, meat, fish etc) that they had never seen before that day. As I was wandering around the stall, a few of them would ask me, what is this called or what is that. Artichoke, cauliflower, red peppers (!). It was fascinating to see some of the vegetables that these kids did not know. As a matter of fact, it was fascinating to see what the man in the suit didn't know. I was talking to two or three of the kids about artichokes, when the man came over. He called the rest of the class over to give them an impromptu lecture on artichokes. He told them it was a vegetable (true). He told them the best way to cook them was to peel off all of the leaves until you got inside to the "smoother, lighter" leaves, then you cook it - steam it or whatever. Then he told them to cut off the bottom stem, and cut off the side of the bottom of the artichoke and save that to use for something else later. And there you have it. I came thisclose to telling the class, that was a bunch of malarkey. You might take off the bottom row of leaves, but leave the others on. Steam the artichoke, serve it with melted butter or mayo for leaf dipping and then cut out the heart when you are all done and eat it there!!! Trust a chef to take something so simple, and make it so complicated.

Some of my other favorite stalls? The fish market, amazing, very fresh seafood, always displayed interestingly.
Monk fish, shark, you name it. It is right next to the fresh game market. Rabbit, venison, game birds, wild turkey (the bird not the drink). I also never miss the olive stand. So
far I have resisted these brownies but I don't think I will be able to dodge this chocolate bullet for much longer.

So if you come visit us, your trip is likely to include a visit to the Borough Market. I promise I won't lecture you on the proper way to prepare an artichoke. Much.