Borough Market and the Borough Box

The best of Borough Market to your door:

What a fortunate person I am.  Two stops from my house (or a healthy 30-minute walk) is Borough Market.  I’ve been shopping there for quite a few years now and whenever I have the excuse of a special occasion, I make a trip there.  Actually, whenever I can think of an excuse…anything from being in the area to being a bit bored.  So I was delighted to be asked to review the brand new ‘Borough Box’

And I’m delighted to say, I think it’s BRILLIANT.

My box had a wonderful selection of goodies.  And, apart from the Whirld clotted cream fudge, which I managed to scoff immediately the box was open, I’ve been treasuring the contents.

It might be easy to spot that I did really love the fudge.  It’s one of the few things I can make myself and I seldom find fudge in the shops that I like better than my own.  This one, well, it’s better than some of the batches I make for sure.  And it genuinely does taste homemade.

The next thing I opened was the Pink Himalayan Salt.  Now, despite my claims to be a foodie, I’d never actually tried Pink Himalayan Salt.  This one comes from a stall at Borough called Spice Mountain.   If you get the chance to visit, you’ll find a veritable cornucopia of spices, salts and seasoning.  Pink Himalayan Salt is reputed to have great health-giving properties – the composition is 85% sodium chloride and 15% other minerals including  iron, magnesium, phosphorus, calcium, potassium and chloride, boron, fluoride, iodine, zinc, selenium and copper.  And, of course, it’s produced without any chemical processing.  For me, it’s all about the taste, which is delicate and light.

Then, three things from Taste Croatia – a stall at Borough I know very well.  Istria is a part of Croatia with a great wealth of produce including some wonderful truffles.  I haven’t opened the pumpkin seed oil or infused honey yet, but I HAVE tasted both at Borough and I know the oil will be wonderful for the summer salad season.  The fig and walnut cake is dense, sweet and wonderful.  I like to think it’s healthy – though I suspect it’s not!

I love Chegworth valley juices though I’d never tried apple and beetroot before.  It’s a great combination of sweet apple with earthy beetroot and of course, the beetroot makes it a wonderfully pretty drink.  There was also a small bottle of prosecco in my box, which I’ve hidden in the fridge for one of those occasions when I want to celebrate by myself.

A tiny box of Artisan du Chocolat pearls disappeared very quickly.  Again, something I’ve tried already, these would have been perfect for the end of a dinner party – though mine went before I had a chance to invite anyone round to share.

Finally organic mint tea – which I have to admit I haven’t tried yet either, simply because I have too many packets of tea open already!

A 6-month borough box subscription works out at just over £31.50 a month or single boxes are available at £34.99.  If I didn’t live so close to Borough myself I’d probably indulge, because this first box really does seem to have been put together for me personally.  Normally when I get this kind of gift box it’s about an 80% hit rate for my own tastes.  This time, I’m very happy with everything in the box and, next time I’m at Borough  in person I’ll be wandering around trying to see if there are  stalls for all the products in the box (I’ve already checked and Whirld IS there).

In addition to the monthly Discovery box which contains items from Borough Market and from leading artisan producers around the country, BoroughBox has some excellent gift hampers.  And, you can also order from a whole range of specially selected goodies.

Check out their website and see if they can’t tempt you.