Reading Roars!

I love food markets. They are utterly fantastic. So when I discovered last Saturday that there was a Farmer’s Market on that morning in Reading (it takes place every first and third Saturday of the month), I thought “screw Tesco, I will get my eggs from the farmers instead” (ok, it wasn’t quite like that, but I was very eager or even eggcited to go).

The market, based at the Cattle Market, revealed itself to be quite small. I suppose it’s because I had London’s famous Borough Market fixed in my mind. It didn’t take me long to complete a circuit. There were eggs, cheese, bacon, sausages, chicken, bread, curry sauces, crabs, fish, lobsters, pies and a few other things. It all looked deliciously natural. I was given a mission to buy vegetables (celery, broccoli and yam - whatever a yam was), so I got myself some sticks of celery to begin with. Then a jar of spicy sauce with a coconut base. And a nice bit of organic chicken. Of course, I couldn’t resist the bacon and sausage roll, prepared in front of me.

I wandered next door, away from the market. It was like walking through a wormhole. There were ancient advertising hoardings. One had the Berkshire Mercury on it, a paper whose circulation ended in 1979. This was like Life on Mars, I thought. I felt very calm. It was a cosy vacuum, away from the crazy bustle of 21st century life.

Then - like Scott Bakula in Quantum Leap - I was shunted forward in time, back to 2007. Actually, I had another market to visit, the one by the Civic Centre.

There was, I saw, a very welcome addition to this market. The Taste of Malaysia people were there, cooking something scrumptious outside Pavlov’s Dog: satay, noodles and vegetables. I had to eat - again (to drink, I had mango juice). It smelt great, it tasted great. I lingered a bit, then left to complete my food-buying mission.