Five minutes from our almost-medieval flat lies one of the extant features of Cambridge’s medieval layout, the market square , where sundry stalls set up every day in a bustling panoply of sounds, smells, and shopping.
I have never lived somewhere that is a short walking distance from a daily open-air market (with a few different stalls on different days), and the lifestyle associated it . It took me a couple weeks to realize I could buy much cheaper vegetables there instead of in the boring pre-packaged vegetable aisle at the grocery store. I am so unused to the experience of just grabbing a loose courgette (don’t ask how long it took me to figure out they’re the same as a zucchini) and tossing it in my reusable bag that I still feel like a criminal every time. It adds to the experience that the man who mans the vegetable stand looks like the old village vicar in every BBC period drama.
With a few weeks of observation under my belt, plus a couple weeks of illness and self-isolation to sharpen my taste for the bustling market center, I’ve included a roundup of some of the most surprising items I see at the Cambridge Market. Every time I walk through the market square, I notice something new, so I hope you enjoy this light-hearted look at the offerings.
1. Wooden bowls with ‘bits and bobs’ engraved on them.
I thought ‘bits and bobs’ was some sort of caricature of Britishisms that nobody really said (I think I’ve only heard it before in the first Harry Potter movie????), so I was delighted to see this piece at the Quirky & Posh Gifts stall. I stared at it so long the lovely lady thought I must found it ugly and assured me the same bowl came without an engraving, or with a personalized engraving of my choice.
Little does she know how excited I am to come back and buy it as a Christmas present for my living room 😉
2. Antique military artifacts
This stand, which sported helmets, medals, and regalia which had clearly quite a story to tell, is rather elusive (to my husband’s disappointment). I have only ever seen them once and never again despite their advertisement of thrice-weekly presence (and my almost daily presence at the market). Fun fact that I learned from the man who manages the militaria shop with his wife: the 75th anniversary of D-day and the release of modern war movies like Dunkirk led to an uptick in collecting and trading British uniforms, medals, helmets, etc., even resulting in shortages of items in high demand among collectors new and old.
3. Grass-fed beef
As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I really love how well-integrated Cambridge and the local countryside have turned out to be. The presence of local Cows in packaged form at the market just reinforces my delight. Growing up, we raised grass-fed beef of our own for years, and this stand provides a taste (heh) of home that warms my heart!
4. Tenderstem broccoli
One of the fun parts of marriage, adulthood, seriously living on one’s own for the first time, and all that jazz is finding that some things are totally normal to other people that are completely foreign to you. The dear husband and I both had never heard of “tenderstem”, also known as broccolini, which I picked up once sort of by accident (I couldn’t find the “normal” broccoli). Now I see it at every vegetable stand, and I wonder, how did our childhood (and college and postgrad years) hide this substance from us? Tasty broccoli without the chunky stem and tight-knit florets that get the little green sand-like grains all over the counter? A magical item indeed and now a fridge staple in our little kitchen.
5. Crystals (and other geological products of varying magical properties)
Speaking of a magic more potent than tenderstem broccoli, the largest stand by far at the market is the “The Science of Magic.” This well-stocked shop for all things rock, meteor, fossil, and holistic-good-vibes-manifesting-ism, always has a solid gaggle of customers, likely due to the amazing variety of wares. Various rocks and natural objects are displayed with their “healing benefits” of which I am admittedly a skeptic (I do credit them for their comprehensiveness in that sphere, they even sell smudge sticks). All the same I love browsing this stand as it evokes fond memories of our honeymoon visit to Kehoe’s Agate Shop in Montana, likewise a haven of dinosaur teeth and shiny rocks of various hues. Amusingly, some of their most prominently displayed products are these Arizona-originated coasters.
6. Wasabi peas and Banana Tea (at the same stand)
I really love this stand – they have coffee beans, bulk seeds, exotic dried fruits and the aforementioned wasabi peas, but mostly LOADS of loose-leaf tea– including of the banana variety, which haunts my psyche. I have tried to wrap my mind around this concept without reducing it in my head to gross hot banana water to no avail. I am afraid of buying the banana tea, as it comes in a large enough packet that, should it indeed taste like gross hot banana water, I would be stuck with a hefty sack of the leaves thereof for ages to come.
7. Hungarian- Filipino fusion
The messiest chicken-bacon wrap I have ever eaten. The delightful man who run this stand was excited to give me an “American size portion.” He regaled us with his adventures in the U.S.A. back in the 90s where he was shocked at the size of hamburgers. Sadly, due to the somewhat engorged state of the wrap and the fact that I was trying to eat it on a bench outside, the pigeons got a few pieces. I hope they enjoyed it, at least.
8. Expensive cheese
The bible of my kitchen (out of print but worth it used) has a great Calzone recipe, but as a skeptic of the merits of grocery-store-dairy-section Swiss cheese, I sought an alternative. Naturally the market stand of Roberto’s Deli seemed the ideal source, and the man behind the counter (is it Roberto? perhaps I will never know) picked out a very pricey raclette for me. I was a bit alarmed by his warning that I would have to open all the windows to air out the smell when I unpackaged it…fortunately the smell was actually somewhat pleasant and the calzone delicious, but the price tag of the cheese (and salami and everything else they sell at Roberto’s) has barred me from returning for anything but the fresh ravioli (a delicacy rather rare find at Sainsbury’s). The best part of the cheese-buying experience was the number of passersby who stopped to speak and laugh in Italian with the man whom we shall call Roberto…I felt like I was the odd one out of a big Italian inside joke (maybe they were making fun of me for paying so much for a small piece of cheese, who knows).
9. Eclectic books, served together.
The bookstand at the market never fails to disappoint with fun surprises alongside the expected piles of British history books. On one occasion, the liturgy nerd in me was really fired up by a 19th century Anglican missal laid out with a Gregorian Chant coffee-table-book, two tantalizing delights for which I have no room in the allotment of suitcases provided for our return to the States. Sometimes there are vintage gems such as this 1819 edition of the memoirs of John Evelyn. The fact that I had never heard of this revered English diarist appears to be the fault of Samuel Pepys, whose diary outshone Evelyn’s (perhaps why such a venerable tome is relegated to an open-air bookstand rather than a glass case. Just enough of the books are thematically categorized that the anomalies pop out all the more, and it is the inexplicable juxtapositions of certain books that keep me coming back. Why, for example, was Evelyn displayed alongside a radical pagan archaeological theory from the 1970s? On another occasion, why was a book onJack the Ripper neatly aligned with the Oxford Classical Dictionary? I am convinced that there is a secret logic to these choices and solving the conundrum fascinates me. This bookstand also has an excellent selection of out-of-print editions of children’s literature (Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl especially well-represented) that piques my interest every time – again, were it not for the constraints of moving back to America, I would be carrying off a boatload of books every time.
A fun medieval fact I discovered about the Market Square is that it used to be the site of public punishments such as beheadings. Currently there is a large tourist-y fake Christmas tree at one end of the square; replace it in your mind with a gallows and the picture is complete!
Cover image: Market Scene by Pieter Aertsen
Musings of a medievalist mama 