The Market Diaries, 20th July 2025

It’s been a while since I did one of these, what with one thing and another - mainly the crab that took up residence in my bowels. But the nasty wee critter is long gone and this past couple of weeks the final remnants of that experience - the post-surgical fatigue - have evaporated. I’m back to my old, annoying self again. Yesterday I did my first full day in the Mediterranean Pantry and by the end of it, I was knackered, but not fatigued. If you’ve been ill yourself, you’ll know the difference.

Many thanks to the NHS, the surgeons who did a splendid job on me, and the nurses who helped me recover; and of course to all my friends and relatives who rallied round and visited me. I felt very cared for and very loved, which was an unexpected bonus of getting cancer. I could get addicted to being ill, if it wasn’t for the actual illness bit. And of course Anita. I thought she was going to struggle with illness, but she really rose to the occasion. If you love someone, is it possible to love them more? I guess it is.

Here’s a lovely picture of the beloved as I left her at the stall on Saturday morning.

So - The Mediterranean Pantry. We had a lot of help off Anna, who took over my Fridays and some of Anita’s Saturdays as well. Herbie did his stuff too on Wednesdays and Thursday ... and finally now we’re back to normal, with me on Friday and Anita on Saturdays.

So what’s new?

First of all, our lovely neighbour Debbie has done our logo - here it is. There are various colours, I think this is my favourite.

People often come into the shop and say it’s nowhere near as crowded as when Alexander was there. Some of them say they like that - it was so full they didn’t know where to look and now at least you can see what you’re looking at. There again, the overall idea about it is that it should be like an Aladdin’s cave of delicious things - a kind of edible art gallery. You never know what you’re going to find. It’s difficult to strike a balance but over the weeks we have filled up the shelves. There’s a good choise of wines you won’t see anywhere else, grappa, liqueurs, pasta sauces, pasta, tinned fish, soups and so on, which we try to achieve by rotating our orders from week to week.

We do a lot of Italian goodies, but this past week was Spanish week, plus a little bit of France - so I thought I’d pop up some pictures, to give people an idea of the kind of things we stock. And - who knows? - if you’re local you might even be tempted to buy it.

Here’s an unusual but very lovely red prawn mousse from Spain - made with Spain’s most delicious prawns, the red prawns of Palamos on the Costa Brava. Who knew the Costa Brava was famous for something other than Brits? - well, it’s the red prawns of Palamos. It’s a firm, slightly jellyish texture with a good, strong prawn flavour. Lovely on a thin toast.

The photo below is of part of our Spanish shelves, and next to the prawn mousse is a similar sized jar with a caramelised red pepper confit - like the caramelised onion jam you see so much of these days, but made with red pepper instead. Interesting. Very good red pepper flavour, goes well with strong meats.

And next to that - this is a beauty - couldn’t resist ordering this. It’s a tin of little red peppers stuffed with hake and shrimp in a very rich tomato sauce. The Spanish adore hake - it’s a lovely fish which rewards good cooking, and they’ve managed to keep this firm in a tin, which is quite a feat. I had some yesterday for a starter and mopped up the juices with some ciabatta. Yum!

And - gazpachio! Big red bottles of it. Oh, and finally, I have to mention some really nice Rioja. By and large we stock mainly Italian wines made with grape varieties you don’t find so often in the supermarket, if at all - a few Sicilian varieties, a few from Puglia, down in the south east. You can buy a Pino Grigio anywhere, after all, but you have to travel to get some of these. But there’s Rioja, too. People have asked for some, so there it now is.

And finally - this. This is one of my favourites; Spanish black pudding, Morcilla de Burgos. Anita and I stayed in Burgos a few years ago on an interrail trip - it has a perefectly hideous cathedral. God knows what they did to that. It looks as if it started out life as an attractive Gothic cathedral, and somewhere down the line they turned from a church into a vast complex, part church, part castle, part dungeon. But they do have some lovely places to eat there. It’s in the north, not far from green hills of Asturia, which is famous for it’s strong blue cheese and smoked cured meats. Morcilla de Burgos is a firm textured sausage, with white rice and flavoured, unusually, for the north of Spain, with cumin. Shades of moorish influence. It has a wetter texture than our Bury black puddings. Fry it on a slow flame until a good crust forms and have it with an egg for breakfast - delicious! Even Anita, who won’t eat black puddiung normally, raves about this one.

From France this week, it was mainly fishy things. Soups! Fish soup, including a provencial recipie. Also a big glass jar of Bisque de Homard - lobster bisque. All really nice. There should have been another one, but somehow our suppliers farmed us out with too much fish soup in pint jars rather than the tins I wanted. Not sure what happened there.

That’ll do for the stock this week.

People drop by and want to know how the stall is going. The answer is ... slow. But then the whole market is slow. One of the butchers was saying a little while ago that he’d had his slowest week ever, and the butchers tend to be busy in the Market Hall. How come?

Well, when the weather was hot people were saying it was the heat. When it was raining they were saying it’s the rain. Now the schools have broken up and everyone is saying that people are away on holiday. We’ve tried various things - dropped some prices, stocked up the shelves. But in the end, perhaps a customer yesterday had the right idea - a lady who had come in to buy some nduja for a pasta dish.

‘It’s the recession no-one’s talking about,’ she said. Could be. The country itself isn’t in recession, but maybe the retail trade is. The supermarkets are complaining. Food prices continue to go up. People don’t feel that they have much money. Our shop is really for treats rather than your everyday essentails. We do stock tomato paste and tins of toms and bread and some veg, all at reeasonably competative prices, but even there we only stock the top brands. Strianese tomatoes are the only variety of tinned toms you get with a DOP, the Italain demonination controlle, but they cost. We have a range of balsamic vinegar, some at just a few pounds, as well as the stuff at 12, 18, 22, 40 pounds. (I know! £40 for a bottel of vinegar? You won’t be putting that on your chips. But you should taste that stuff ... And thinking about it, I might try it on chips - if the chips are good enough.)

So it’s costly, but if you will buy top quality Italian roasted artichoke hearts, or organic pasta, or aioli with truffle, it ain’t going to come cheap no matter where you go. What can I say? It’s cheaper than art, and if you don’t mind underripe tomatos in your tin, go to Lidle.

We met up with Alexander, master grocer and inventor of the stall, for some guidence on Christmas orders - which, amazingly, you have to put in round about now to get your stuff before it runs out. Panatone, fig and walnut wheels and amaretti biscuits from Italy, chocolate from Spain and France, chocolate covered figs from Greece. Christmas is where you make your money in this business. We shall see. It’s going to cost a fortune getting it all in, but hopefully it will make on the way out again. We hope! All we ask at the moment is that it keeps its own face clean, but the autumn and Christmas will determine whether or not the Mediterranean Pantry stays open into 2026.