merci manchester markets
15 Sep 2009 4 Comments
in food and drink, manchester Tags: baguettes, cheese, france, manchester, markets
I’ve written about the great seasonal Manchester markets in a previous blog post and was thrilled to find out last week that a French market was once again being held in St Ann’s square.
Salivating at the prospect of fresh baguettes, Chris and I set off for a visit on a sunny autumn Saturday morning on the weekend and we were not disappointed. Even though these markets tend to be small, they can be quite atmospheric. Stall holders shouted their “bonjour” and we were presented with an array of baked goods, cheese, olives, sweets and … errm… Peruvian woven clothing (no idea).
There was only one boulanger, one fromagerie, one stall selling soaps etc. This didn’t pose a problem, as each vendor had more than enough to offer foodies and Francophiles.
First up was a couple from Brittany selling biscuits pick and mix style. We loaded our bag with the gorgeous sweet treats and couldn’t wait to have some with une thé later on. I’m the one with a sweet tooth in our house, so was happy with the biscuit purchase, but Chris was disappointed. He did however like the lemon-flavoured petite Madeleine, a small, plump, shell-shaped sponge cake on the left of the picture below. My favourite was the deliciously jammy apricot-filled biscuit of which we also got a strawberry version (bottom right).
The fromagerie beckoned in all its smelly glory and while there were loads of seemingly delicious options, we quickly settled on a block of comte, an unpasteurised cow’s milk cheese from eastern France. It is nutty and mild, on the softer side of firm and rather impressive.
There was a pretty good saucisson stall with small pieces of sausages to taste. Unfortunately, nothing really grabbed our fancy. I tried both the venison and boar sausage and was tempted to buy some just for novelty’s sake, but because the taste was nothing special and their smell distinctly un-special, we passed.
It wasn’t all food – we skipped the dried fruit, olives, liquorice and fudge and stopped at a small stall selling wooden letters with wheels. Put together, with a wooden locomotive at the front, you could build a train featuring your name. We got one for my niece Mia.
But the piece de resistance of French markets for me remains the simple pleasure that comes from buying a freshly-baked baguette. These were perfect. Warm, crispy on the outside but soft on the inside, sumptuously sweet and satisfying.
We couldn’t resist getting a slice of vanilla custard tart for dessert. We bought a huge piece for sharing and agreed that its firm consistency was perfect and the vanilla hit all the right notes.
The walk back to the flat was heavenly – as if we weren’t in Manchester at all. The sun was baking down and we were biting off bits of delicious freshly-baked baguette with “merci” still ringing in our ears. We weren’t satisfied though – we went back to St Ann’s square the very next day for more baguettes, croissants and pain au chocolat for later and Monday morning.
Retour bientôt marche francaise s’il vous plait!!!
