Miss Foodwise

Celebrating British food and Culture

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Borough Market – not just a food market

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I’ve been planning to write about Borough Market for a very long time, the draft has been in my folder waiting for the right moment, and now the time couldn’t be more poignant. After last weeks terrible events where the market was the victim of a senseless attack I knew I had to write this. Now over a week later, the market is finally opening again and now more than ever the market traders and surrounding restaurants and bars need your support.

Most of the traders are very small often family owned businesses. Loosing a week of custom, and getting over the fact that this beautiful multicultural market was soiled with violence is tough. We all know the way forward it to ‘keep calm and carry on’ so please if you are in London, take the tube to London Bridge Station and do your shopping at Borough Market. Meet there for lunch or dinner or after-work-drinks. It’s safe, probably safer than it has ever been. But mostly, it is a statement, that we will not let terrorism dictate our lives.

On my first ever visit to Borough Market 7 years ago, I never thought that today I would be working for them and writing for their mag and website. Now nearly two years ago I became a photographer for the Borough Market magazine called ‘Market Life’. It is beautifully produced and jam-packed with interesting content. Stories about the market traders and their lives, the produce, the provenance and the events at the market which have become plentiful over the years. There are panel talks, tastings, cookery demonstrations and there even is a Cookbook Club. It is such a community. I’ve worked with many of the market traders, sourcing produce for shoots, they’ve been generous with advise and for some shoots they’ve even been on hand to help me. That is why I was especially shaken by the sadness that happened last week. My first thoughts were with the traders and the people who work tirelessly behind the scenes in the Borough Market office. The people I love to work with.

Borough Market is life, it is hope. It is a place where gender, sexual orientation, colour, religion or political preference doesn’t matter. It’s food, only food. That what keeps us alive, that what we live for, that what brings people together. The market sent out a statement and I want to share with you:

Now more than ever, we need to remind ourselves that what we do here matters. A food market has nothing to do with hate. A food market is about sustenance and wellbeing, pleasure and sharing, companionship and family. That’s why it’s important.

This post was supposed to be about the history of Borough Market, but for now, it is about the present and the future……

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Smithfield Meat Market – a history and a nomination for the Pink Lady Food photography award!

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Smithfield Market, 865 years of notorious history of meat, bloodshed, crime and uprising.


Turning down Sun Street and Crown Street, and crossing Finsbury square, Mr. Sikes struck, by way of Chiswell Street, into Barbican: thence into Long Lane, and so into Smithfield; from which latter place arose a tumult of discordant sounds that filled Oliver Twist with amazement. It was market-morning. The ground was covered, nearly ankle-deep, with filth and mire; a thick steam, perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemd to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. All the pens in the centre of the large area, and as many temporary pens as could be crowded into the vacant space, were filled with sheep; tied up to posts by the gutter side were long lines of beasts and oxen, three or four deep. Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a mass; the whistling of drovers, the barking dogs, the bellowing and plunging of the oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squeaking of pigs, the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides; the ringing of bells and roar of voices, that issued from every public-house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and yelling; the hideous and discordant dim that resounded from every corner of the market; and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figues constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng; rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite confounded the senses.
Charles Dickens – Oliver Twist, 1838And so were the words of Charles Dickens about Smithfield meat market in his marvellous work Oliver Twist.
England has always been famed for the outstanding quality of its meat. In the 19th century, Smithfield meat market was notorious for its wild cattle that was hazardously driven through the streets of London. The drovers and butchers were apparently as savage as their cattle and murder and rape were no exceptions in these quarters.
Reports of cattle stirred up by drunk herdsmen killing men, woman and children on their way were frequent. Cattle was slaughtered at the site and the streets coloured red with blood.Surrounded by dirty streets, lanes, courts, and alleys, the haunts of poverty and crime, Smithfield is infested not only with fierce and savage cattle, but also with the still fiercer and more savage tribes of drivers and butchers. On market-days the passengers are in danger of being run over, trampled down, or tossed up by the drivers or “beasts”; at night, rapine and murder prowl in the lanes and alleys in the vicinity; and the police have more trouble with this part of the town than with the whole of Brompton, Kensington, and Bayswater. The crowd­ing of cattle in the centre of the town is an inexhaustible source of accidents.Max Schlesinger, Saunterings in and about London, 1853

From 1150,

Smithfield has been used as a market for live stock. It was a large open space on the outskirts of town, it had small open spaces and wooden pens and a broad open street market.

In 1174 Smithfield was described by William Fitzstephen, clerk to Thomas à Becket in his ‘Description of London’, one of my favourite works to learn about Ancient London and its people.

‘In a suburb immediately outside one of the gates there is a field that is smooth, both in name and in fact. Every Friday (unless it is an important holy day requiring solemnity) crowds are drawn to the show and sale of fine horses. This attracts the earls, barons and knights who are then in the city, along with many citizens, whether to buy or just to watch.’
A description of London, ca.1174/1183, translated from Latin.

 

The ancient map of London ‘Civitas Londinum’ dated to 1561, shows large open fields and cattle pens. The market area is now called ‘Schmyt Fyeld’. During that time the market area had access to the river Fleet so cattle had water to drink and grass to feed on.

Because Smithfield was an open space which was so close to the city centre, it was also used for public executions. William Wallace – known to most as Braveheart after the film – was executed there in 1305. It was also the meeting place to gather for the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381. Executions continued well into the 16th century with Henry VIII murdering Catholics and his daughter ‘Bloody Mary’ burning in excess of 200 protestants. During the 17th century the site became a popular place for duelling and later it turned into a prime spot to pick up a prostitute for the night.

The structure of the market would remain largely the same as in the Middle Ages until a building was erected designed by Victorian architect Sir Horace Jones in 1868. By then the market was in the centre of London instead of in the outskirts, adjoining fields.

We can still see that majestic market building today, and some of its additions from later in that century, but sadly a part of it has been derelict for many decades now.

When I visited the market I was warned by Londoners that some of the butchers were still cheeky buggers and they weren’t kidding. On my short walk around I got talking to one of them, I took his picture, asked him if I could use the image, and he gave me his phone number and told me to call him some time.

The market was at its end of trading that day when I visited, meat was being packed up and carted away in supermarket trolleys, leaving it to look nearly as rough and dirty as it must have looked centuries ago.

It is a historic place, there has been a cattle market here for 865 years, and I hope it will remain here for centuries to come. It’s extraordinary that after the relocation of Billingsgate Fish market, Covent Garden and Spitalfields market, Smithfield market is still holding strong.

It is a heritage site, and with so many historical important places being demolished in London today – think the London Wool and fruit exchange in Shoreditch – we have to hang on to this one while we can.

Looking up in the meat market building
Supermarket carts are used to move the meat and are scattered around everywhere
though crumbling, still a special place
Butchers chatting during the clean-up of todays market day
One of the loading gates
Lorries are driving on and off with loads of meat
The butchers don’t mind posing a little for my camera
Part of the market in its derelict state, still waiting to be renovated and repurposed

Dear readers, the above image from Smithfield market has been shortlisted in the prestigious Pink Lady Food Photography Awards in the category ‘Food For Sale’ for the People’s choice award. If you like my work, I would be super grateful if you would vote for my photograph! 

You can vote HERE > and scroll down to ‘Food for sale’
Thanks so much xx
 

Do leave a comment, I love hearing from you!

The intriguing Twelfth cake

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The Twelfth cake is to me one of the most intriguing of cakes in the British cuisine. The cake is traditionally baked for the feast of epiphany or as the name already reveals – the twelfth night of christmas. But baking a cake for epiphany isn’t a custom in Britain alone, in other European countries and in my home country Belgium we have the ‘3 kings cake’ (driekoningen taart) or the ‘Galette du Rois’ which is a frangipane tart with puff pastry concealing a much coveted bean which will make you king for the day. The 3 kings cake is sold with a paper crown so all is in order for the coronation of the lucky finder of the bean. At some time however it was the fashion of concealing tiny porcelain babies and nativity figures in the cake, a custom my mother in law tells me is still practiced by the bakery in my neighbourhood. I remember as a child, I’ve never had the pleasure of finding the bean which would make me king, this annoyed me very much as a little girl.
In Britain the tradition was to hide a bean and a pea in a plum cake, the bean would crown the king and the pea would crown the queen. The Twelfth cake would contain spices like cloves, mace, nutmeg and cinnamon along with dried fruits like raisins and candied orange or lemon peel.

Antique 3 king cake figurines, imagine biting into one of those!

The earliest printed recipe for a Twelfth cake dates from 1803 and can be found in John Mollard’s the Art of Cookery. However, references to the custom of the Twelfth cake and the celebrations surrounding it can be found as far back in history as the 16th century and it is very possible that the tradition has been around for much longer. In a early Tudor manuscript which is kept at the Bodleian Library we find a passage about wassail cakes, which are believed to be heathen Twelfth cakes. Wassail comes from the Old English ‘Waes hale’ which most likely means ‘be whole’ or be healthy, like a kind of frase you say while making a toast. We can also find recipes for Wassail which is a type of mulled cider traditionally drunk while Wassailing, meaning a tradition of awakening the cider apple trees while singing and drinking.


In 1648, Robert Herrick’s poem ‘Twelft Night: Or King and Queen describes the celebrations of the Twelfth night beautifully. Here he speaks of a cake full of plums (plums meaning raisins rather than actual plums, see plum pudding) And goes on to describe the election of a king and queen after discovering a bean and a pea. And he mentions a gentle Lamb’s wool and the spices that should go into it to give to the king and queen for wassailing. The Lambswool is a Wassail drink made of ale or cider.
A
few years later in 1659/1660 Samuel Pepys writes in his diary on januari the 6th
of a ‘Brave cake brought us, and in the choosing, Pall was Queen and Mr.
Stradwick was King.’ Which shows that there were celebrations in the city as well as in the country, though there is no word of wassailing in Pepys lines.

During the mid 1700 up until the late 1800 Twelfth cakes were very fashionable and often decadently decorated showing elaborate scenes and figurines crafted out of sugar or wax. Crowns seem to have been the most popular decoration and usually white icing would have been used which back then was a sugar paste called gum paste which was shaped into wooden molds. We can find illustrations of large Twelfth cakes set in a scene of feasting in the Satires Collection of the British Museum, and we also find Victorian Twelfth night cards with humorous illustrations of characters. The day the Twelfth cakes, large and small would appear in the pastry shop’s windows in London a large number of people would gather in front of them to capture a glance of these most fashionable cakes. The Victorians enjoyed the Twelfth night celebrations to the full and the pastry shops sold the Twelfth night character cards with the cakes. Each guest of the party would then have to choose a card which had a verse describing the character underneath. One had to read the verse aloud and pretend to be that character until midnight. We can find an excellent description of these events and many more surrounding Twelfth day and Wassailing in ‘The Every-Day Book’ by William Hone. In the country the celebrations surrounding the twelfth night would still be the more heathen Wassailing, the twelfth night celebrations in London were considered rather vulgar by outsiders.

Although we will not easily find Twelfth cakes in the shops today, the tradition of wassailing is still very much alive with country feasts all over Britain. People come together to sing, drink wassail, eat plum cake and be merry. Once again it is the ancient and probably pre-christian tradition which has withstood the test of time. In my opinion because these traditions are more entwined with nature, the change of the seasons and the marking moments in the farming year that come with it.

What about you? Did you go wassailing or did you bake a Twelfth cake or another cake from your corner of the world?

 

This recipe is basically Mollard‘s recipe translated to modern day, Mollard doesn’t give measurements of the yeast and milk, which I had to test to give to you. Also the recipe of Mollard is three times the measurements given here, which means that this would have been a massive Twelfth cake!

What do you need

  • organic white wheat flour, 500 g
  • dried yeast, 2 teaspoons
  • lukewarm milk, half a cup
  • unsalted butter, softened, 75 g
  • raw cane sugar, 100 g
  • currants or sultanas, 340 g
  • Candied orange peel or lemon, to taste
  • Cinnamon, 2 teaspoons
  • Cloves, pounded, 1 teaspoon
  • a generous pinch of mace
  • a pinch of nutmeg
  • cold milk, 1,5 cups

Method

Add all the flour to a bowl and make a well in the middle, add the sugar in the well followed by half a cup of warmed milk.
Add the yeast to the milk and stir so the yeast, milk and sugar are mixed. After a few minutes the yeast will start bubbling and will look frothy.
Now add the butter and spices followed by 1 cup of milk, mix well and then add another cup of milk before adding the dried and candied fruit.
While adding the currants and peel you might need to add an additional half a cup of milk, especially if you’ve started out without soaking the currants.
Once the mixture has come together in a slightly wet dough, cover and let rest for 2 hours or more if you have the time.
Line a spring form or wooden baking hoop with baking paper and add the dough.
Put in a preheated oven at 200° C for 1 hour.
If you see that the top is browning too much, cover it with tinfoil to prevent a burnt crust.
Leave to cool in the tin or hoop and ice and top with the most decadent decorations you can manage to create. I used fondant and marzipan to create these decorations, I only need some pointers in evening out my icing!
This cake is more like a bread and reminds me of the German Stollen, but dryer.

You might also enjoy
Lambs Wool
Ypocras
Plum pudding
Cranberry and apple crumble

Polpo Soho – London

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This was the perfect end to a spring day.
We went to London to visit the Chocolate festival, the weather was beautiful and the city buzzing because of the first warm spring day.
On our way to the underground we passed by Polpo in Soho to see if there was a long line waiting for dinner. Much to our luck the lovely lady told us it was only going to be a 30 minute wait for a table.
We drank our aperitif at the bar and had look trough the menu.
The dishes listed are classic Italian, served in ‘Cicheti‘ small plates much like tapas.
B. and I like the concept of small plates, that way we can taste a lot of different things in one evening. Deciding between dishes is always very hard so now you don’t have to choose, unless you want them all of course… We did, but decided to come back instead of ordering the whole menu in one go.

Polpo is housed in the ground flour of a 18th century building just around the corner of Carnaby street. The interior is rustic but still feels modern, it’s casual and atmospheric.
We enjoyed the food, we had Arancini as a nibble and a few different things to share. The Mortadella, gorgonzola & pickled radicchio pizetta was our favourite. The dough had a lot of flavour and the fattiness of the Mortadella was delicious with the slightly sour pickled radicchio. 
The Brown crab and zucchini orecchiette had a decent amount of crab in it and tasted lovely and fresh. The only thing I was disapointed by was the beetroot & hazelnut salad, I wished it was raw beetroot but it was cooked. I personally don’t like eating big lumps of cooked beetroot and I feel the dish could have been better with raw beetroot. But perhaps it’s just me.
Finished of with a chocolate salami and strong coffee we were ready for the journey back to Sussex.

We enjoyed our time at Polpo, perfect after a day in London when you want a relaxed dinner and good value for money. The music might have been a bit too loud and I noticed the couple next to us pointing out the same matter.
You can book a table for lunch but if you want to go in the evening, it can be a wait.
We were lucky as we didn’t have to wait too long and for people like us who didn’t have dinner reservations this really comes in handy.
41 Beak Street
London

*This is not a sponsored review, all food and drink was payed for by ourselves.


Please feel free to leave a comment, I enjoy reading them!

Bocca di Lupo, London

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I love social media, a few weeks ago I saw some tweets passing by from a friend about a restaurant she was at. The tweets got me all excited to go to that restaurant, I got my review about the place from a reliable source because I know the lady and know she is a tough nut to crack 😉 So when we decided to go to London, that restaurant was my first choice.
I tend to do my research before I book a table for dinner. You probably know the story, first you google it for reviews than you go to Tripadvisor. Thanks to social media, you can just ask someone who you know you can trust on the matter. I mostly check if another foodblogger has written something about it on his or her blog.

Back to the post. We are at Bocca di Lupo today, because of Twitter.
After a walk trough the busy neighbourhood of Soho we turned into a quiet street where the restaurant and it’s little sister Gelupo have found their home.

‘Bocca di Lupo’ the child of Jacob Kenedy and Victor Hugo, opened its doors in the winter of  2008 and has since received numerous awards and great reviews for its down to earth ‘real’ Italian cuisine.
On their website they say that despite being in glamorous surroundings they are still “a family business and a humble trattoria at heart”.
If they can make something themselves, they will and some of the home made delights are available along with their gelato across the street at Gelupo.

We had high hopes and quite and appetite after we went prop shopping at Potobello Market in the morning.

The onion focaccia and the big green olives soothed our first hunger and soon we made a choice between all the delicious dishes on the menu card. Next to every dish on the menu is the region mentioned where it originated from, nice touch.
Sitting at the Chefs counter we were able to see all the cooking happen in front of our noses.
We had a few primi from which I must say the radish salad was my absolute favourite, even B who would usually never touch pomegranate loved it.
The great thing about this place is that you can choose between a large or a small portion so you can have an assortment of small plates to taste if yo want.
That way you can try a lot of things and you don’t form an opinion on just one or two dishes.
B was totally in love with the spinach and ricotta malfatti and I could have eaten a bucket load of the tortellini filled with Mortadella. I had tripe ‘Italian style’ for the first time and rather liked it.
Soon all the little plates were empty and spoons licked clean.
The service was correct, attentive and not too formal, just the way I like it.
This Italian restaurant is a little gem tucked away in Soho, after our meal we crossed the street to Gelato for the delicacies and ice cream.
I left the Bocca di Lupo experience with the big Bocca di Lupo book under my arm and a Ricotta bonbon in my mouth.
Lovely experience, can’t wait to eat here again.

Bocca Di lupo
12 Archer street, Soho, London
Underground station: Piccadilly

Some of the dishes we tried