Review of 'Borough Market: Edible Histories'

Borough Market: Edible Histories by Mark Riddaway

Borough Market is a famous food market in London, near London Bridge. This is a collection of essays based on a popular column from Borough Market's “Market Life” magazine, with each essay focusing on a particular food item, for example, pasta, olive oil, coffee, or eel. Each chapter is a well-researched story of the featured ingredient explaining it's history and how it came to our modern tables to be sold in London and the market.

Though interesting, I found the material quite dry and fairly boring. There were some fascinating historical tidbits but nothing that stuck with me longer than a few minutes after reading them (bananas used to have massive seeds and are now largely of a single species; tea is generally always made with the leaves of a single plant species; eels used to be available in massive numbers in the Thames – yes, I had to look those up just now). This is a light read that you will go “hum, that is interesting” then put it down and forget all about it. I am sure it is well researched and all that but I just could not really get into it despite being an admitted “foodie” (and loving the market).

Rating: “A bit better than average”

Review Date: 2024-12-22

Genre: Non-Fiction

Publisher: Hodder

Publication Date: 2022

ISBN: 9781529349733