Borough: London's Underground Market
London, England
By
Tiffany Hawk
Despite faithful efforts to shake its association with blandness, London cuisine has been typecast. Tourists will spend hours, or even days, hunting for antiques at Portobello Road and ogling designer labels at Harrods. But, when it comes to food, with low expectations, they quickly settle for the pub. Perhaps the more adventurous will spring for a Chicken Tikka Masala at the corner Indian buffet. Few realize the most cosmopolitan shopping and gratifying eating can be found together across the Thames and under the trains in South London.
While conventional travelers duck into West-End pubs, in Southwark, crowds of sophisticated and discriminating shoppers huddle in rustic stalls under the railway absorbing every reverberation belted out by an opera-singing grocer. As round and powerful as her melancholy aria, the oversized merchant weighs the produce she has brought to market seemingly unaware of her growing audience. An aromatic trail, almost visible, wafts through the air seducing the hungry to the next stall. They lift their noses and like cartoon characters are dragged through the four and one-half acre iron and glass sheltered maze of London's Borough Market. They float powerlessly with wide eyes and salivating mouths, eating, seeing, touching, buying, the smorgasbord of exotic and organic food on display.
Sandwiched between London Bridge station and Southwark Cathedral, Borough Market has been a thriving wholesale venue for at least a thousand years. From the eras of Chaucer and Shakespeare to Dickens then Bridget Jones, local hoteliers and restaurateurs have gathered in the wee hours of the morning to hunt and bargain for the ideal ingredients.
Now this specialty market has opened to the public. Connoisseurs of the local and tourist variety can sample delicacies from chorizos to mulberries, anchovies to chardonnay vinegars. Modern shoppers methodically zig and zag past gourmet coffees, Japanese teas, flowering zucchinis, sun dried tomatoes and sun dried hams. They find one stall devoted entirely to olives, another to nuts, another to organic wines, still another to organic beers. They turn from traditional English sausages and pork pies to find pate, hummus, paella and a thorough display of chutneys. A monkfish with an enormous gaping mouth threatens to snap at passersby. Next to the frightening fish, a full sized skate lounges on ice.
Today, steam cuts through the cold, wet, network of stalls. A long but patient line forms. Customers shift their weight from foot to foot with their money in hand, as a farmer-turned-cook fries up a sizzling ostrich patty and slaps together a burger with hot mustard, cranberry sauce and freshly grilled onions. Nearby his wife peddles ostrich eggs, boasting an omelet big enough for the whole family.
This is no Portobello Road, no Harrods. You won't find Baby Dior and you won't find age-old knick-knacks. But you will find millennium-old London, layered with the architecture and ambience of the Industrial Revolution, littered with the culinary treasures of the once far-reaching British Empire.
Borough Market is located on the south side of London Bridge Mainline Station and is open Fridays from noon to 6:00 pm, and Saturdays from 9am to 4pm.
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