Christmas at Borough Market

What a treat to be able to do some of my Christmas shopping at Borough Market in London, UK! There’s been a market on this spot for 1,000 years and it’s an amazing place to shop for local and international food products.

The market sprawls beneath the arches of London Bridge with trains rattling by overhead. There are many vendors in the market buildings, while others have independent premises nearby.

Quality over Quantity
The food at Borough Market isn’t cheap, but it’s all of superior quality. Many of the vendors are also producers. Others offer hand-picked wares from small-scale artisan producers. Much of the food is organic and made by hand, and the market has close ties with Slow Food.

You’ll find unusual products, excellent quality, and incredible flavour.

British Cheese
There were so many vendors selling cheese and I made a point of buying British cheese although I could also have bought cheese from Croatia, France, and Switzerland.

I’ve purchased Gorwydd Caerphilly in the past and knew it was a must-have this year as well: “Gorwydd Caerphilly boasts traditional Caerphilly cheese produced by the Trethowan family at Gorwydd Farm, just outside the village of Llanddewi Brefi in Ceredigion, west Wales. The cheese is made with unpasteurised cow’s milk and animal rennet, using original hand-turned presses and mould. It is matured for two months at closely monitored temperature and humidity levels; during this process, each cheese is carefully turned every day.”

A new one for me this year is organic Bath Soft Cheese: “It has a pedigree stretching back to the 1790s, listing Admiral Lord Nelson among its many admirers.”

White Stilton is a very mild cheese. I’m more familiar with it when it’s been combined with chunks of apricot or ginger. “White Stilton is a Protected Designation of Origin and can only be made in one of three counties - Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire from locally produced milk.” 

Neal’s Yard Dairy is extraordinary for the support and encouragement they offer to Britain’s artisan cheesemakers: “We select, mature and sell farmhouse cheese from the UK and Ireland. We work with about 40 cheesemakers. We visit them regularly to taste their cheese with them and select the batches we want to mature and sell.”

Social Enterprise 
Good food not only tastes good; it’s also good for the people who make it and eat it. Two stalls had strong social goals and objectives.

Luminary Bakery is a “social enterprise offering opportunities for women from vulnerable backgrounds to build a future for themselves. We use baking as a tool to take women on a journey to employability. We offer courses, work experience and paid employment within our bakery. By investing in and releasing them to realize their dreams, through training, employment and community, we aim to break the generational cycles of abuse, prostitution, criminal activity and poverty.”

I didn’t purchase anything from Nibs Etc. but I was impressed that they were using waste ingredients – fruit and vegetable pulp from local juice bars – to make their products.

Lunch 
A whole section of the market is dedicated to food stalls offering an incredible variety of lunch options.

I had a messy but delicious burger sitting beside a replica of Sir Francis Drake’s Golden Hind, looking at the amazing skyscape across the Thames.