Good Things #2 | Food Market Food
For those who love the hustle and bustle of food markets, and the 'street food' associated with them
Featuring a cracking new cookbook, which explores Korean comfort food from the beating heart of Seoul, plus thoughts on how to eat well in and around London’s Borough Market.
This is ‘Good Things’ — a monthly roundup of good things to cook and to eat.
The bulk of it is for paid subscribers. I’d love for you to become one of those. It’ll mean you see all recipe posts (such as within ‘On the Side’ and ‘In the Centre’ columns); can read the Good Things column without restriction; have access to the ever-growing archive of recipes and Supplemental roundups; and can enter cookbook giveaways (there’s one today, another in two weeks). It also means you’re supporting Rocket & Squash, a Cook’s Digest more generally. And both you and I will sleep better for that.
Urban food markets are inherently alluring, even to people who claim to be agnostic about what they eat.
We’re drawn to these spaces like moths to a candle. The hustle, the barging, and the competing and clashing sounds, smells and sights are as nonsensical and displeasing as continually singing your wings in a flame must be. And yet it’s also wildly enjoyable, and an assault we seek wherever we travel.
My saliva glands pulse while reminiscing over recent and not so recent wanders around La Vucciria in Palermo (including a plate of bbq’d intestines); the never-ending line of satay skewers set over hot embers around Lao Pa Sat, Singapore; vats of boiled lamb under bare light bulbs in Djemaa El Fna, Marrakech; early morning sushi with a cold beer at Tsukiji market in Tokyo; and, closer to home, a 5:00am scallop and bacon roll at Billingsgate fish market.
These experiences and the associated (vivid) recollections of the food live rent free in the hippocampus. Arguably disproportionately so: even where the dishes are only objectively OK, the surroundings add an intangible seasoning that makes everything taste better and linger longer. This is not a complaint.
Su Scott touches on this addictive sensory experience in her latest cookbook, Pocha.
Pojangmacha (pocha, for short) are the tented or tarpaulin covered stalls, bars or market vendors serving cheap and unfussy comfort food, snacks and drinks. And they are, she says, the beating heart and soul of Seoul; the cooking nurses South Korean hunger and emotions.
The book features captivating reportage photography, along with appetising shots of lip-smacking recipes. Chapters and short essays cover All Day Dining (a number of good eggs…); Market Lunches (think things over rice, amazing pickles and salads); Afternoon Pick-Me Ups (sweet stuff); and Night Time Feasts (sharing pots, ‘carby slurps’). I want to dive in. I want to book flights to Seoul.
As you can tell, I’m entranced by Pocha and think many of you will be too — particularly if you’re already a lover of Korean food, but also if you’re generally hungry to learn more of global cuisines. So I’m delighted to say that we’ve been granted a recipe extract (at the base of this post). AND if you’re a paid subscriber, just message me before 22 May for a chance to win a copy of the book.
Also in this edition: I write about eating in and around Borough Market, including mention of new restaurants Oma and Agora, and lists for the best restaurants in the area, plus best places to grab food on-the-go; there’s a first Utensil Of The Month(!) recommendation; and links to a handful of online recipes, collated because they fit the bustling yet comforting street eating theme.