Borough Market itself is exactly how a London food market should be, everything is piled up like a dutch genre art come to life, this is Real Food - things with the fur and feet still on, things not quite dead yet, cheese that smells like its been dead a while, artisanal bread with bits of authentic millstone grit in for authetic tooth damage, Italians flirting over olives, L flirting back in Italian, every kind of vegetable shiny-skinned and vibrantly coloured, rare herb, rare breed pig or sheep, sausage rolls with a seam of meat in the middle the girth of my fist, handmade pastas, chutneys, sweetmeats, fudge, cake and jam, singing greengrocers, all a bustling and noisy and fragrant.

This is as far from the anodyne, pre-packaged under clingfilm on a polysterene tray, divorced from the means of production, mass consumption supermarket shopping as you can get. This means it also ain't cheap, but it is good, and a little of something great is a whole lot better than a lot of something average.


We buy olives for my mother, and pickled garlic, crusty bread, oozy cheese, baklava and, slightly weary, head for cake at a teashop with a giant illuminated orchid on the wall. We get into conversation with two lovely Dutch ladies who are enthusing over the cheesecake with Baileys in it.