Holiday Shopping

Although travel is suppose to broaden the mind, in this modern age when most of the world comes to you via one means or another, there is very little about the world outside Australia that comes as a real surprise once you get there. That said I still think travel should be compulsory – if only to get things into some sort of perspective and reaffirm that Australia is perhaps the best place on earth to live even if it is much too far from everywhere else (which is of course half the reason why it is such a wonderful place to be).

Watching all those English chefs on television and reading their books could seduce you into thinking that we were missing out on something here in the Antipodes but you would be wrong. I had naively let myself think that somehow shopping in Sainsburys or Waitrose or Marks and Spencer might just be that little bit more exciting than being in Coles or Woolworths. It isn’t. A supermarket is a supermarket is a supermarket. OK there are a few different products to look at – many more home brand, ready prepared bits and pieces – and the Waitrose magazine Food Illustrated is a much better production and far more interesting than any house magazine you might find at the checkout here but that is about it. The supermarket shopping experience is impersonal and sterile almost by definition.

The best places to shop, and my favourite holiday attractions, are always fresh food markets – where ever they may be.

And in London the most exciting place to spend a Saturday morning is the Borough Market in the shadow of Southwark Cathedral. Not only is the produce here wonderful (fresh and diverse), the market appears to be very professionally run – there’s a map to guide you around (who’s where and when they are open) and a quarterly magazine called Market Life which introduces the stall holders and what they have available. This is perhaps as it should be for a market which can trace its origins back 2,000 years or so and has been operating on its present site for over 250 years.  The market is administered by a Trust, a charity administered by the Board of Trustees, whose mandate is to hold a market for the benefit of the community - now there's a novel idea.

Everything available on the Saturday we were there looked so tempting! From fresh fruit and vegetables, to fish, shellfish, Bresse chickens, rabbits and game birds, pies, pastries and the most seductive cheeses! I could shop here every week!