Smithfield Market

Shakespeare's Macbeth has to be one of my favourite plays. I love a good tragedy. Macbeth is not only that, but full of strange happenings, like prophetic bearded ladies hanging out on hills in bad weather, so that suits me fine. Strange things are also supposed to happen when there's a full moon. And so they do. Like getting up at 4am to go meat shopping.

I highly recommend it full moon or not, although it does help if you have a partner in crime to share in the merriment. There is plenty to enjoy. For a start, 4am has to be one of the only times that driving in London becomes pure pleasure. The streets are your own, there are no charges to pay and parking is a doddle. It is also as close as London comes to feeling unpeopled...

Until you get to Smithfield Market that is. You will find it awash with white transit vans and populated by many a man in blood-stained overalls and hard hat.

They're a cheery bunch at Smithfield Market. I would be too if I worked in such a beautiful building. It's 140 years old. Dickens describes it in chapter 21 of Oliver Twist:

‘It was market morning. The ground was covered nearly ankle-deep with filth and mire; and a thick steam perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. All the pens in the centre of the large area, and as many temporary ones as could be crowded into the vacant space, were filled with sheep; and, tied up to posts by the gutter-side, were long lines of beasts and oxen, three or four deep. Countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a dense mass: the whistling of drovers, the barking of dogs, the bellowing and plunging of beasts, the bleating of sheep, and the grunting and squeaking of pigs; the cries of hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides, the ringing of bells and roar of voices that issued from every public-house; the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and yelling; the hideous and discordant din that resounded from every corner of the market; and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng, rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene which quite confounded the senses.’

It has evolved since the 1830s of course, and thankfully the meat-men have so far been spared the fate of their compatriots who were evicted from Old Billingsgate in 1982 because the suits didn't care for the fishy smells.


Macbeth and the market have something in common: blood. And lots of it. If you are at all squeamish, the 'horrid image' of wholesale slaughter is probably not for you. The place is populated by a bevy of Bellona's bridegrooms chopping, sawing and hacking. You will most likely see a sow 'unseamed' from 'the nave to th' chops', so if that doesn't put you off, go. It is great fun.

You can buy: a suckling pig for £65; half a full grown pig (sawn straight down the middle Damien Hirst-style) for £60; lamb shanks by the dozen; rabbits skinned and gutted for a fiver; goats; all sorts of hoofs; heads; sweetbreads; tripe; offal; eggs; even vacuum packed potatoes... You can haggle till you're hoarse though as the traders just don't budge. Not for 1 kilo, not for 10, not for 100. 'If you bought 500 tonnes, then I might come down a bit' was one trader's reply, even when the blonde pledged she would commit to 70 kilos of chicken carcasses.

For me this morning's outing was oxen themed. According to Edward Mogg's New Picture of London, 110,000 oxen were eaten annually in our great city during the 1840s. That's impressive. I'm not sure how popular oxen is today, but I came back with these bits: 1 fresh oxtail (£4.50 a kilo) which came to £6 from William Warman & Guttridge; and 2 ox cheeks from Channel Meats.

I did make the mistake of first buying an oxtail from J.F Edwards for £9, but only thought to ask of its provenance and whether it had been frozen after I paid (these details are not made clear on any of the stalls). It was German and had previously been frozen. I was too shy to ask if I could return it, but hey-ho, it takes time to work out which traders are for you. Oh yes, I also bought a haggis for £2.50, which shall be eaten on the 25th of this month.

Back to the cheeks. Ox cheeks I have eaten only once before: Gordon Ramsay at Claridges a few years ago. They were marvellous, although the salmon coloured walls of that dining room I shall never forget. You can read about what I did with my oxtail here, and ox cheeks here.

I asked the chap at Channel Meats if he had any tips on how to cook the cheeks, and he said no, but added that they must be good because Gordon buys the exact same ones from him too.