Europe’s Largest Market – A Comparison with Domestic Markets
London's largest market – Borough Market. It's not just London's largest market, but also Europe's largest, with wholesale trading from 2am to 8am Monday to Friday and retail and food market sales from Wednesday to Saturday lunchtime.
Those vegetables with the pale green, Fibonacci sequence-like beauty, like Romanesco broccoli, are called 'Roman kale', also known as 'Roman cauliflower' or 'Roman spinach'. They can be fried, steamed or cooked like ordinary broccoli. When fried, they have a crisper texture.
This picture contains most of the fresh and fragrant spices that can be bought in Britain, which reminds us of the line from 'Scarbrough Market' – 'Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme'. Lemon balm and ginger, boiled in water, are good winter warm drinks with a sweet, lingering flavour.
Since it's a market, it can't be without tomatoes! There are at least ten different kinds of tomatoes in these two pictures, the deeper the color, the sweeter the tomato. I especially like the second picture, the 'Beefsteak' tomato, which is very soft and juicy, pairs perfectly with red meat, or can be chopped and sprinkled on crispy bread, with olive oil, garlic and salt, for an amazing appetizer.
On the left, this plant looks like a lotus flower – artichoke. You can find olive oil-infused vinegar artichokes in most European delis. Fresh artichokes, steamed for 20 minutes, should only be eaten with the leaf part below the fluffy heart, which needs to be discarded, or it will clog your throat.
When people think of British people, many think they only eat potatoes. They eat potatoes in many ways, always with fries, mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, roasted potatoes… but few people know that there are many varieties of potatoes, some with a lot of starch for mashed potatoes, some with low water content for frying, and black potatoes – not sweet potatoes, but the second picture has the name printed backwards – this one costs 5 pounds per kilogram.
Putting all kinds of pumpkins together creates a festive atmosphere. Many pumpkins are not eaten, but used for decoration, like pumpkins carved for Halloween, which actually have a bland taste.
There are also many kinds of fruit, from juicy berries to exotic fruits, from fresh figs to candied fruit. Nuts and chestnuts, both shelled and unshelled, can satisfy your every fruit need.
Purple carrots, yellow carrots, red carrots, 'hearty beauty' carrots with a shy centre, and turnip stems – these provide a wide range of choices for the human table. In fact, carrots were originally purple – the Dutch cultivated the orange variety.
Although it's not as big as Billingsgate Market, it still provides enough ingredients for dinner, and you can eat fresh oysters and sea urchins just pulled from the box, as well as pre-cooked seafood in boxes.
Since it's a market, it must have a meat shop. Besides regular farm chickens, there are three yellow chickens, pearl chickens, quail and various wild animals to choose from. Meat products are also abundant, fresh sausages have many flavors, you can fry them in a pan, and whole smoked pork legs, sliced thinly like paper, go well with salads and bread. Baked puff pastry pies and Scottish egg balls – bake at 200 degrees for 30 minutes, they'll fill the whole room with meat fragrance.
High-end restaurants use truffles, which cost as much as gold. If a whole truffle is too expensive, truffle-flavored olive oil and honey can add a touch of unique aroma to the dishes.
I love these glass jars filled with all kinds of colored oils – they contain the essence of plants, a few drops can make a bland salad suddenly come to life. Underneath the oil jar is a small jar of various mustard flavors – mustard, which is made from mustard seeds, is known as 'mustard', and wasabi made from wasabi root is used with sashimi.
The French and the British are separated by the sea, so it's very close, so there are many French imported products, goose liver pate, duck liver pate, goose leg with crispy skin, mashed chestnut puree… Besides these fancy little jars, there are also millions of French wines. The middle picture is European specialty liver puree (pate), if you like liver, this is definitely for you.
Of course there are also many cheese and sausage shops, most of which let you try them, cheese is sold for 100 grams, so you should taste it before buying. Sausages are cut into slices and eaten directly, they don't need to be heated, they are already safe during the drying process. Gather three or five friends, bring cheese, sausages and crackers, and a few bottles of good wine, and you can chat for an afternoon.
