Oh how I love Borough Market. How my husband loves Borough Market. In fact, it may be the single thing in London he really, really likes, as he finds my beloved city loud, crowded, dirty, inconvenient and ridiculously expensive. All of which is true. But I love it still. And Borough Market is certainly top of the list. I would never consider myself a foodie, far from actually, but there is something about the quality and the beauty of the market that makes it irresistible. It lulls you into believing you can cook anything, turn every meal into a feast, excite every taste possible. I have struggled home with bulging sacks filled with fruit and vegetables, not the boring kinds but the good stuff: artichokes, figs, pomegrantes, mushrooms. Once I decided that I had to have a dozen blood oranges too. Certianly appreciated by my family, but bloody heavy to carry home. Cheeses, saucisson with hazelnuts, Spanish ham, olives, bread, fish, exotic meats, cake, licorice, everything that looks good, and it all looks good. Why I haven’t written about it before, I don’t know. But now is certainly the time. Sadly, sadly now is the time. Following the devastating terror attack, the market was closed for 11 days. But it has reopened, and I was there.

There has been a market, in one form or another, at London Bridge, for at least 1,000 years. Over the centuries, and more recently, the decades, the market’s size and success has waxed and wained, and by the 1970’s the growth of the supermarket made the market obsolete. But nothing this good could be gone forever. In the 1990s the interest in local and artisan foods began to grow. A collection of traders met once a month, then once a week and now the Market is open Monday-Saturday and has stalls from all over the UK and Europe. A quick glance down the current trader list includes Spanish cheese, vegetarian pasties made with Balkan recipes, French pastries, olives from Greece, Turkish condiments, Oysters from Essex and  charcuterie from south Wales…you get the idea. It is a destination for anyone interested in food of any kind. It is also a popular spot for after work drinks and dinner. A gorgeous place to spend a warm Saturday night. Hence the horror that took place there only two weeks ago. And why I had to go back as quickly as I could.

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This time I wanted to be a little more organized than usual, not just roam round and grab anything and everthing that appealed. I wanted to prepare something exclusively sourced. Given how hot the weather has been, I decided on a salad, a gorgeous, colourful summer salad. A Borough Market salad. I chatted with vendors, all of whom were so happy to be back at work. “Everyone is coming with so much love,” the adorable olive seller told me. The market was crowded, but less so than I have seen before. Everyone was taking pictures. Not just the hideous selfie versions, or artistically arranged piles of peppers, but of the market itself, as if people wanted to prove that life was continuing on. I shared my idea of the salad and got great suggestions. In the end, I made something really rather beautiful. And delicious. Rocket, bibs of many colours, tomatoes  in all their many, many shades of sunset, black olives and violets. A treat for the eye and the stomach. Made with so much love, food for the soul.

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