Food markets fizz with a very particular kind of energy in the summer months. That’s as true anywhere as at Borough Market where the energy somehow hits me as I’m still walking the stairs up from London Bridge tube, way before I even see the market gates. It’s not just the sun’s moodlift that makes things palpably different in the summer than at any other time of year – it’s the distinctive culmination of the summer vibes that marketgoers bring. Whether seasonal cooks there to stock up on longed-for summer produce; friends on a wander for a day out; or food lovers after a few deliciously easy wins to enjoy on a rug somewhere.
Any kind of picnic (garden/beach/park/lounge) can be so easily catered for at a food market. In one swoop you can pick up chilled bottles of interesting wines, beers and softs; breads for ripping into; butter and seasonal young cheeses; charcuterie; salty black olives, and all kinds of fabulous fruits. Tins of preserved fish make for interesting rug-chat over the beautiful boxes. At Borough there’s no shortage of choice of those at The Tinned Fish Market stall. Sometimes there I’ll go for the Cântara small squid stuffed with onion, rice and tomatoes; other times the Pepus mussels in escabeche. Or else it’s the never-fail Ortiz tuna at Brindisa, home to so many foods that are a picnic-maker’s dream. (Fino sherry, truffle crisps, jamon, salted almonds… do I need to go on?)
That ease the food markets gift to feeding a gathering translates seamlessly to the ease they offer summer’s everyday cooking and eating. The stalls (almost) struggling to fit in all the magnificent seasonal produce that is so often best enjoyed when hardly anything is being done to it.
Courgettes, peppers and aubergines gleam with proud beauty among the glory of all the other summer vegetables and fruits. Pods of garden peas and broad or borlotti beans beg to be bought by the bagful. All of them are a joy to mindlessly and mindfully pop out of the shells when you get home, but the borlottis perhaps most of all as that’s the only way to really be able to admire the purple mottles of the bean before it disappears upon cooking.
The best seasonal tomatoes need little more than olive oil and salt to bring out their supreme flavour. Salad options are inexhaustible – go for big sharing bowls of a fattoush or panzanella; or the neat Nicoise bundles featured in Borough Market: The Knowledge. There the classic Nicoise elements of anchovy, mayonnaise, capers and egg are piled aboard little gem boats for ease of eating.
Another of my all-time favourite summer salads is in that book too: oregano-poached peaches, halloumi and hazelnuts. Its mix of sweetly salty flavours manages to be simultaneously refreshing and completely beautiful on the plate. The peaches in it becoming the very best version of themselves by being poached with dried oregano and honey. The choice of honey is no accident. In the summer I always make sure to stock up at the market on blossom honeys that will delicately yet effectively infuse so many foods – and drinks – with a floral undernote. Perhaps the lavender honey at From Field and Flower, or the wild thyme at Oliveology.
That’s the one I use in the dressing for making The Knowledge’s labneh with watermelon, honey and mint. It’s a recipe that straddles the boundary of sweet and savoury, with watermelon griddled in olive oil, orange and sumac for peak refreshment. My top tip in making this is to always do more labneh than needed in the recipe because it is such a useful thing to be able to reach for in the fridge. All it takes is 900g of really good, thick Greek yoghurt mixed with 1 teaspoon of salt and spooned into a muslin-lined sieve. Let that drain for 6-12 hours (depending how thick you want it – longer equals thicker) and the result is approximately 500g of labneh. Use it for salads, or to spread on toast with perhaps just a few sliced apricots.
Summer is mackerel season at the market. A fish that is packed with flavour and goodness, and also incredibly easy to cook. Griddle it, bake it, fry it, or over-fire it. And then, when any kind of cooking seems impossible in the heat, even sit it in vinegar for a while and let its acidity do the “cooking” for you. Try the same thing with the small fresh anchovies that the fishmongers also have in now. They absolutely don’t need to be gutted, but the skilled fishmonger will happily do it for you (and at the same time showcase exceptional filleting knife skills).
Whenever I head to the market on a produce-shopping mission it tends to be just that – a mission. I do try to make sure to spend time checking out what is what because the very nature of market shopping is that it is never the same. What the stalls offer week on week is at the mercy of not just the season but whatever choices traders have been made on what to stock that week, that day. Yet, as I beetle around, I am always a bit envious of the market wanderers. It’s a feeling that grows even stronger in the summer when these marketgoers without any agenda of shopping lists to mark off, or a fridge to fill, are enjoying being among all the glorious foods on the day out with friends and family. With nothing to do except admiringly soak it all up while stopping off for the occasional energy-boost by way of an ice-cream or a glass of something coolly bolstering. What a great way to spend a day.
The cooks, the picnic-ers, the wanderers. Each as welcome and as catered for in a summertime market. All playing a key role in building the atmosphere that makes these months there so deliciously special.
For more information on what you can find at Borough Market, visit: boroughmarket.org.uk
