Eight sensational food markets

together enough money for a set of round-the-world flights. The trip

was both terrifying and magical, and although we met mountains, cities,

monuments and new friends, what I really became obsessed with were the

food markets that we came across.

(which felt outrageously naughty) and the mesmerising cacophony of

Mumbai’s markets, I found myself wide-eyed and open-mouthed in a soup

of street stalls in Hong Kong, watching live frogs being nonchalantly

dispatched by the stallholder’s hatchet.

of a country. Food is the vital stuff that flows from the land into the

people, where it’s metabolised into the blood, fat and bones that make

us what we are. Markets are the cultural, economic and gossip hubs that

make it all happen, and they are inevitably microcosms of their

countries.
>

exploring the most extraordinary lands on the planet making Cooking in

the Danger Zone for the BBC. On my travels I never feel I know a

country, city or town until I’ve visited its markets, got my bearings

and understood its noises, smells and flavours.

the strange and wonderful foods on offer, but if I’m staying in a hotel

room with no cooking facilities, it’s impossible to prepare them. These

days, I tend to travel with a little foldaway charcoal burner, and I’ll

buy a cheap pan wherever I visit so I can cook whatever I buy.

Oh, and if you visit a market of strange foods in a strange town, be

sure to ask the stallholders their advice on cooking – you will

occasionally find yourself invited back after closing time for the meal

of your life.

seen. There are whole sections dedicated to cacti displayed in huge

circular towers. There are chilli sections where they stock hundreds of

different varieties: the large chocolate-brown types are sweet and

musky, but beware of the nasty little light-red ones – they are likely

to smack you in the chops.

it: it’s the one with large cakes of smoked duck entrails, bright-red

tiny crayfish and large bags of scrofulous old tat that you’d never

believe was edible (usually pre-Hispanic-era foods loved by the Aztecs

and Mayans).

ant eggs that are soft with a creamy, sweet taste. At $80 per kilo you

can buy fly eggs (they crunch on your teeth like tough caviar) that you

mix with egg and chopped cactus to make fly-egg omelettes. They don’t

taste of much, but the texture is like nothing else on earth.

Not only can you buy every grotesque piscine nether-dweller, mollusc,

crawler and bottom-feeder that ever cropped up in your nightmares, you

can also take them upstairs to one of the first-floor gallery’s

bring-your-own restaurants, where they will cook your shopping for you.

your bag of slimy mess to the waitress, pay a small cookage (like

corkage) fee, and buy rice, kimchi (fermented cabbage) and beer to go

with it.

The stallholders are remarkably friendly, but don’t expect to get much cooking advice as few seem to speak English.

it a good squeeze, popping its intestines out and handing them to me to

eat (a little sour, truth be told). Then she just cut the

still-wriggling slug into neat slices and handed them to me in a bowl.

If that’s too much for you, don’t worry, most things get a proper

cooking.

Slavutych, which has the only market in the world with a

radiation-testing lab so you can check your food before eating it. In

1986 a failed experiment caused the world’s worst nuclear accident, and

tons of radioactive dust were deposited across Europe. Slavutych got

more than its fair share.

workers still employed in decommissioning the power station and its

‘Zone of Alienation’, where nobody is supposed to live (but which you

can sometimes visit as a tourist).

of porcini mushrooms. But the radiation-testing station is the most

amazing thing about it, designed specifically for monitoring the food

on sale. Every vendor has a certificate proving that their produce is

currently within safe levels of radiation. However, I went mushroom

picking with the local mayor and our haul turned out to be eight times

the safe radiation level…

although most is actually human squealing. The Chinese seem to eat

everything and waste nothing – nowhere is this illustrated more clearly

than at this small strip of stalls specialising in the most extraordinary foods that ever peeped their unfortunate heads out of the ground. Try grilled snakeskins, squab pigeon kebabs (you eat the whole bird: head, bones and feet), cockroaches, vast silkworm larvae and

assorted grilled field flotsam.

in the same colours, and the stallholders have clearly got their

Englishesque patter from years of flogging bugs to foreigners. That

said, the tourists are mainly Chinese. It’s a classic place for a young

Beijing lad to bring his girlfriend on a night out to shock her with

his gastronomic bravery. Hence the squeals.

network of streets and shops. It can be pretty overwhelming, and at

first it seems like there’s not a lot to buy except dodgy shirts and

shoes. But look closer and you’ll spot weird little shops selling

ecclesiastical tools-of-trade to the Ethiopian Orthodox church folk –

indoor umbrellas, incense-burners, fabulous hats and robes in spangly

designs.

smoky, hot speciality that’s essential for making the great doro wat

curry – arguably the Ethiopian national dish alongside injera (a

blanket-like bread that looks like tripe).

speciality. The whole cow carcass hangs in a booth at the front; just

point at the bit you’d like and the butcher chops it into a few large

steaks. He’ll give you a rusty-looking knife (I’d bring your own, if I

were you), and a small pot of spices. A liberal slug of whisky

traditionally accompanies the beef, although I’ll admit to preferring

beer. It may seem odd to be eating raw beef in Ethiopia, but it’s great.

many of them small-scale traders selling a single product. The best way

to get there is by noisy, daredevil-driven tuk-tuk, which helps prepare

you for the frenetic and cacophonous feel of the market, with its

shouty traders, raucous hagglers and booming music stalls. Thai

markets, more than any I’ve visited, give you a real insight into the

people and the ordered chaos of the country.

pad thai and tom yam that are dirt-cheap but often taste fantastic. I

love the myriad insects, rats and bats, and I recommend trying

grasshoppers and cockroaches, but bear in mind that they are a little

like crisps – the oil delivers most of the flavour, so if the stall has

a large pot of dirty brown oil that’s clearly been around for weeks,

the insects will taste musky and murky. Try the deep-fried quail eggs

–surprisingly refined for a market snack.

Afghanistan is broadly failing to improve its levels of human

development, its vibrant markets are a testament to the power of food

to bring order, structure and employment to turmoil. Also, the vast

majority of Afghans are warm, helpful and exceptionally friendly to

Westerners – that legendary Arab tradition of hospitality lives and

breathes throughout all the difficulty the Afghan people are facing.

should buy some meat and charcoal at the markets and head out with the

rest of the city to find any patch of land you can for a barbecue.

and excrement, the oddly named Microrayn is a little more structured,

with tarmac roads and many permanent stalls plus decent-looking

butchers and vegetable stalls. The butchers are fantastic: they have

mincing machines that are made from old car engines, and once you’ve

bought your meat, they will turn it on using a car key and rev it using

an accelerator pedal. I’d avoid the livid-pink deep-fried Coronary

Express Afghan Hamburgers though. Nothing good can come from them.

finest, most exquisite ingredients available to man. It’s on the

southern fringes of Paris (about 11km from the centre), it opens at

midnight and closes by 7am. This is the world’s largest wholesale

market, covering a vast and, frankly, unattractive plot of 2.3 sq km.

It’s so big that it has its own train station and motorway exit.

highlights of Rungis – it’s crammed full of the finest pheasants,

hares, pigeon and woodcock. The Triperie is also spectacular: an

intestinal festival, whose ingredients go to make the famous

andouillette sausages the French are so fond of, but which taste

largely of sweaty pants.

tour (find out more at www.visiterungis.com). If you can’t arrange a

visit to Rungis, any large French city market is a great experience

both for the fantastic range of foods on offer and the extraordinary

level of respect that the French traders show to their produce.