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| MarcusStrapp |
Last week I took my son back to university. It's the same university where I met his mum thirty years ago. My son is having as gloriously happy and fulfilling a time down in Canterbury as we had had.
Son and I took some time to explore my old haunts and his new ones. The Unicorn pub is still there with the bar billiards table in the back room. Of course there have been changes, Sweeny Tood's the pizza parlour is now a Thai restaurant. The Darwin junior common room; in my day a sparse affair with institutional style tables and chairs around the outside wall, and small tuck bar, is now a snazzy bar/restaurant (if a little lurid). But, the feel and lively buzz of the place remains the same. The small picturesque cuteness and charm of Canterbury certainly remains. It's one of my favourite places.
Son is a foody, and an accomplished one at that. To be honest I am somewhat miffed that I have lost my chef. I might be the only father who visits his son at university to return home with food parcels! One of son's new haunts is The Goods Shed, a local farmers market. What a fabulous find!
This is a place where the link between food and its source has not been hidden behind the sanitising packaging and presentation of the supermarket. The meat counter for instance, makes no bones about meat being slaughtered animal, and for my money, if you are going to eat meat, then that is all the more honest way to indulge.
The Goods Shed, is housed in an ex-railway goods shed next to Canterbury West railway station. It's a sympathetically renovated old craggy redbrick building with exposed beams and large beautiful arched windows. When you enter the place, all your sense are fired; the sound, smell, sight are all such a full on treat. For those of you have only ever shopped in the sterility of M&S and John Lewis, you might find the smell of raw meat and ripe cheese over powering. Stick with it, it a re-education in life! There's a small number of stalls supplying locally produce, bread, meat, game, fish, cheese, vegetables and confectionary. You can find everything from knobbly carrots that still have mud on them to (in season) pheasant, in short a good range of organic local produce. Now don't get me wrong, I am not some fanatical green liberal tree hugger, I do not fork out the extra readies at my local supermarket to fill my trolly with "organic" labels. But this isn't that kind of organic, this is orgasmic organic! The Goods Shed is the olfactory factory. The Goods Shed is the gustation station and the stalls are staffed by people passionate about what they do with the time to talk to you, and a desire to tempt you.
There are no doubt larger and even more comprehensive markets throughout the country and Europe, but that does not make them (or your experience) any the better. If you shop at the Goods Shed you'll probably not get a number of things on your shopping list, they'll either not be in season, or just not be produced by the small number of local traders there. So you have the choice, you go to the supermarket and stick to your list, or if you are like my son , you stick with the Goods Shed and go off-piste. And this for me underlines an important principle: Our consumercentric world sells us the illusory pursuit of happiness at the real cost of contentment. The pheasant season had just closed, so son reworked the menu around a beef and red wine casserole. Such a blend of flavours; it brought tears to my eyes whilst eating, yes it was that good.
For me life is more about appreciating what we have than striving for what we have not. Perhaps I lack ambition. But I consider myself wealthy because I can take a lot of joy in the simple things. For instance, I have never been a semi-skimmed kind of a guy, it's always the full fat product for me. I'd rather run up the stairs and eat a great meal, than take the lift (elevator) and settle for the "healthy option". As we walked through the Goods Shed, we passed a large fridge. Closer inspection revealed it to be a giant refrigerated milk dispenser. This was "Raw Milk", unpasturized, unhomogenised, not even bottled. You bring your own container and just fill it up. Well, how could one miss out on such a quaint olde worlde proposition? We were just missing the old fashioned milk urns and a horse drawn milk float. A goodly bit of middle class novelty eco-tourism right? Wrong!
Son and I were too impatient to wait to get home to taste this milk so unscrewing the lid of the reused wine bottle, we each took a swig. We just sat there and stared at each other. What the hell have we been drinking all these year? Memories came flooding back from my childhood of bottles of gold top on the door step. Suddenly I realised that over the years, the milk I have been drinking has must have been little by little watered down into a health and safety compliant nothingness. Sure it won't do you any harm, but sure it wont do you much good either! It's just too damned boring. Perhaps we've all becomes so frightened of dying that we have forgotten how to live. This wasn't passive milk, this was pro active milk! When you went to the kitchen to make a coffee, it called to you from the fridge. So you changed your mind and poured yourself a glass of milk and luxuriated in one of life's simplest sweetest pleasures.
Don't settle for a semi skimmed life, we pass this way but once, do it with some style!
Discaimers and Fine Print
Yes I know there will be those of you with dietary restrictions, health problems, lactose intolerance, gluten sensitivity and nut alergies etc etc etc. I am not advocating we all break the same rules, find your own rules to break that make sense for you. Above all else, when you fuck, never, ever semi-skimmed fuck. Fuck full strength, so you mean it, fuck with your all until you feel like you will pass out.
Edited Thu 25 Feb 10, 11:07 AM by MarcusStrapp
| 25 Feb 10, 11:59 AM River_Deep UK(M), 6 yrs |
What a fabulous blog. Canterbury is a little far for me to come for a market, so I will have settle for anything local I can find. Have to admit to being a skimmed milk girl, but by god, it is only the drinking kind I have...every other part of my life is FULL FAT and I think I will always have the curves and mind to fulfil this! RD xx It is not what you say or do but the way you say or do it | ||
| 25 Feb 10, 2:01 PM ConsciousnessJunkie UK(N), 5 yrs  |
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Nom nom nom nom | ||
| 25 Feb 10, 4:36 PM wonderer UK, 5 yrs |
I agree - great weblog; lovely evocative writing. I especially like this bit; makes me feel in one respect a kindred spirit:
I'm a bit like that. I don't lack hopes and aspirations and thoughts about what sort of opportunities would be nice to look out for. But I don't go battering doors down to make it happen; to achieve a life plan; to allow it to become my definition of success or happiness. Instead I try to find satisfaction and joy and fulfillment with what I have already. And I also sometimes tap gently on doors, or look out for ones which are ajar.
Not necessarily a contradiction with the above. One can live in style without havig everything; without conforming to other people's notions of success or the good life. Thanks again for a lovely weblog.
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. http://www.informedconsent.co.uk/posts/226772/ | ||
| 25 Feb 10, 4:52 PM Caracal  UK(SS), 4 yrs      |
I prefer a tiny cup of rich full bodied roasted Turkish coffee over a pint of instant decaf, a glass of rich foaming real cask ale over a quart of keg fizz, salted Jersey butter over low fat marge, 4 ounces of Aberdeen Angus steaks over a mountain of MacDonalds. Quality over quantity and the full rich experience every time and my maxim for life too. Mouthwatering blog Marcus, thank you. There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness. Edited 25 Feb 10, 4:54 PM by Caracal | ||
| 25 Feb 10, 9:02 PM playzone UK, 5 yrs |
There is a dairy farmer not far from me and I can get proper milk that came from the cow the same day, as you say it tastes totally different to the shop bought stuff  | ||
| 26 Feb 10, 6:51 PM Cinnamon_Tart UK(S), 8 yrs |
Oh yes. Me too. So very much so. But...but...i am so very greedy. I want quality in quantity.
Fabulous blog, Mr Strapp. xx
What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. (Buddha) | ||
| 26 Feb 10, 9:58 PM Adverse_Camber UK, 3 yrs |
Mmmm...I hate milk, but love your blog. Beautifully written, thank you. "I see the shooting stars falling through your trembling hands..." |
