Town Mouse

In London, the world is your oyster

tom hodgkinson

Sometimes I feel a bit sorry for my country cousins.

They may have fresher air than us city dwellers, but their choice of foodstuffs is extremely limited. They have their farm shops with their lonely chutneys and dirty carrots. There is the occasional box of six eggs sitting on a stone wall next to an honesty tin. There are overpriced sausage vendors such as Daylesford Organic, and the bland, refrigerated offerings of a Tesco superstore. All accessible only by motor car.

But here in London town, we enjoy an infinite variety of exotic foodstuffs right on the doorstep. Just a few yards from my front door in west London, we have Sham Land, a supermarket brimming with specialities from beyond the Syrian sea.

The sausages are not so good, I’ll admit, and of course there’s no bacon. But there are a hundred exotic spices and grains such as mahlab and moghrabieh, halloumi cheese, the perfect hummus, myriad varieties of dates, harissa paste, spicy coffees, vast legs of lamb, every kind of bean you can think of, figs, endless nuts, pitta breads, pieces of turmeric root and sweet pomegranates.

They also sell Ethiopian spices and injera, a sort of squishy flatbread used in Ethiopian cooking. For lunch, there’s fresh falafel and spicy samosas. And I love their marketing slogans with their innocent and charming grammatical errors:

‘The meat introduced by Sham Land is know as it is the best quality in the markets. Our purpose is to maintain introducing and stay at out customer expectation.’

‘Top quality and fresh fruits picked special for you.’

Opposite Sham Land is Damas Gate, a similar emporium, and just down the road is Ayam Zaman. In between, there are half a dozen halal butchers. We also have the wittily named Nut Case, a shop specialising in, yes, nuts.

Then there’s the Polish supermarket with the unpronounceable name: Mleczko Delikatesy. Jars and jars of strange pickles are on display, alongside goat’s milk, Polish cosmetics and sausages (no ban on pork here).

Fifteen types of bread are made in their bakery, and these loaves are really cheap – £1 each. Plus they’re properly baked; no Chorleywood bread process. Mr Mleczko opened his first shop in 1996. There are now 11 branches in London, catering for the city’s 150,000 Poles.

The shop’s website declares, ‘The aim of Delikatesy Mleczko is to provide consumers with the best possible products, but friendly to the pockets of the average Pole living on immigration.’

It’s true; Mleczko is very friendly to the pocket indeed, whether you’re the average Pole or the average town mouse: a lovely ham-and-cheese roll costs just £1.20 and makes a good lunch.

The Sikhs run the off-licences, which offer an amazingly wide range of beers. In the market, you’ll find Caribbean vegetables such as yams and sweet potatoes, as well as crates of mangos and exotic fresh fish.

And you don’t have to travel far to find more exotic grocers. Gerrard Street in the West End is home to the Loon Fung and New Loon Moon Chinese supermarkets.

Wandering down Tottenham Court Road the other day on my way to see a recently released Japanese pirate cartoon film, One Piece, I was struck by a new arrival: Korean supermarkets. There was Seoul Plaza, brimming with kimchi, every kind of noodle, pickled radish slices, tuna rice porridge, tofu, mung-bean pancake mix and shrimp-flavour crisps.

In Hammersmith, we have Thai Smile, which I like particularly for its chocolate straws.

Just down the road in Southall, there’s a different vibe: Indian and Asian supermarkets (alongside endless bridal shops). It’s a vast warehouse of poppadums, chapatis and cardamom.

It isn’t a new story. Every generation brings migrants and of course they bring with them their cuisine, enormously enriching our cities.

In the era of Sherlock Holmes, in the late-19th century, it was the Italians who were moving here. In Clerkenwell today, you can still find wonderful Italian delis. Jews in Whitechapel introduced salt beef and other delicious dishes.

The Asians don’t do cheese well. So if you’re longing for cheese in the Portobello Road market, there’s the most brilliant French-cheese stall, with delightful squashy varieties. And Portobello Road has a Spanish supermarket, too, which I love for its chorizo and its beautifully decorated tins of sardines and paprika.

All the world is here. Like Diogenes of Sinope (c 412-323 BC), this mouse feels like a true cosmopolitan. When Diogenes was asked where he came from, he said, ‘I am a citizen of the world [in ancient Greek a kosmopolites, giving us our word “cosmopolitan”].’

And when I crave a pork pie, a bit of yarg or proper English butter, there’s always Waitrose.