This post is number 1 in a series of 423 where I observe places in London where I can’t afford anything on sale.
I learnt over the weekend that food has many levels. Whilst I, like most people, buy pre-plucked, pre-packed and pre-cooked wares from the local supermarket, there are millions in the world who dream of being able to buy Smash or Super Noodles.
There are also those who wouldn’t dare step foot in Lidl for fear of catching poor and metamorphosising into a chav replete with cheap jewellery, a Croydon facelift and genuine struggle in their life.
These are the people who shop at Borough Market, a foodies’ heaven with a literal cornucopia to select from. And, although I’m proudly liberal with a penchant for redistribution of wealth and equality, it’s hard not to be seduced by the white middle class utopia of a bloke giving you free cheese. It was very nice.
The decadence of cheese
Walking into the market pitches you right into a stramash of tastes and smells while savvy tourists, wealthy shoppers and foreigners (no doubt relieved at being able to find a place to buy decent olive oil and cured meats) mill around nibbling on the various samples.
You could quite comfortably have a full lunch from the freebies on offer, and that’s before you actually succumb to spending your hard-earned on a lamb, rocket and chilli flatbread, baguette or wrap and go all Lloyd Grossman (I heard one irony-free chap proclaim “that is just marvellous” upon taking a bite out of his miniature mozzarella taster-cone ).
Colonel Sanders: 4 Purple Hearts from Gettysburg
Just a few steps away, parallel with the market and the Thames, a back street is lined with gleaming London chain eateries. They have the same names as the replicas you know and love – Wagamamas, Nando’s, Starbuck’s, Nero’s – but are cleaner, newer and with trendier staff with a-line symmetrical dodecahedron haircuts.
They are packed out, people spilling out on to the streets in order to get the coffee, bran muffins and have-a-nice-day-patter that they can get anywhere in the country/world. Meanwhile, pubs sell ‘traditional’ fish and chips for £9 a pop to sore-footed tourists.
Maybe it’s the inner-ponce in me talking, but I think I would rather they were getting ripped off by the passionate independent market traders round the corner than by the bureaucratic conveyor-beltists with painted on grins.
I cooked some scallops for the first time a few weeks ago – have I made the trip to white middle class utopia at long last?
Make sure you pick-up some blood oranges next time you’re at Borough Market, Fitch. They’re only in season until the end of April, so get your fill as soon as you can.
It depends – were they organically reared, fairtrade,anti-slavery scallops?
Anyhow, I don’t think guys like me and you are cut out for the middle class nirvana:
“You’re a long way from Netto now, ready-meal boy…”
[...] In a city as densely populated as London there are interesting little nooks everywhere – each neighbourhood has its own world of curiosa, with independently-run shops that cleanse the consumer palate after a life of getting worn down by stodgy chain-run stores and restaurants. [...]