Mannablog - Food In South Devon

Way back in February we took advantage of our membership of Taste of the West and took a stand in the regional food corner of Borough Market. For those who don’t know it, Borough Market is a foodie’s paradise in South London where you’ll find the finest produce every weekend. Sellers come in from far and wide, including Devon, and the range of stuff to see, taste and buy is amazing. The market is frequented by discerning shoppers and lots of tourists and is always very, very busy. Admittedly, to afford some of the stuff there you need your own hedge fund, but lots of people are very happy to pay for good quality so it all works; and the atmosphere is fabulous. Anyone interested in food should go.

My lovely assistant Cat (Management Consultant Monday to Friday, ace brownie seller on the weekend) gave up here Saturday and rolled out of her bed at Oh My God O’Clock to navigate us across central London in time to get set up and ready for the throng. We loaded up the tables with Double Chocolate Brownies and Sticky Puddings and went for a quick scouting mission to see who was selling what and to compare prices. Just around the corner we spotted a store which had a pile of Brownies about 4 feet high, this was obviously the hot competition; then we found they had another store at the other end of the market with another brownie tower - they must already have a pretty strong following. No matter, the MFD brownie can reduce people to tears; we knew that the refined palattes of the London cogniscenti would beat a path to our table by the end of the day.Sure enough sales were brisk amongst those who had a taster. Some careful rationing was required as there are quite a few wandering around just to see how much free stuff they can snaffle. If I suspected anyone was a scrounger I tried to ignore them until they moved on toward some other stall. By the end of the day we had cleared the table, gained a few fans in the capital and had a great experience.

Two comments stuck in my mind. The first from a lady who wandered by, looked at our brownies and said, ‘they won’t be as good as mine’. Well I couldn’t let that gauntlet lie unchallenged so I told her that she shouldn’t say that if she hadn’t tried one. She fell for my gambit and accepted a taster. After approx 5 seconds on the toungue she said, ‘Oh s**t, they’re much better than mine!’.

The second came from a German couple who were working their way around the market with ruthless efficiency, trying every brownie available. At about 3 o’clock they reappeared at our table and said,’ ve hef tried effry brownie and yours are ze best; may ve take six pleeese?. I love selling brownies!.