The 5:00 AM food market

The hobby of cooking

I recently discovered I have a hobby.  In the past I would stare blankly at surveys asking about personal hobbies and hesitate between abseiling or basket weaving… I’ve been a ‘wine lover and foodie’ for some time now, but somehow along the way, I realised I really enjoy the art of cooking itself.  It’s relaxing and a great way to escape the pressures of the modern world when navigating through preparation, timing and a maze of dull and exotic ingredients.

Learning from the best

This new found pleasure led me to ask a very well-respected chef in Brussels if he ever lets amateurs in his kitchen to observe the secrets of his  two star Michelin restaurant.  He was incredibly generous and said I was welcome to spend a day with his team and added that to have the full experience, I should go to the morning market, at 5:00 AM with him!  

Last Tuesday, my alarm woke me from a restless sleep – at 3.15 AM! to meet the chef’s challenge and prove to him I really wanted to learn.  I knew this would be a memorable experience.  It was so early, the lights were still off on the motorway as I drove the hour haul to Brussels through dense soup-like fog.  At 5.02 AM, we set off for the ‘marche matinal’ – a food paradise for fresh fruit, vegetables, dairy, meat and seafood, vinegars, oils and truffles!  (I had always wondered who was actually awake at this hour – and now I knew.)

It was clear how much the chef is admired by merchants with whom he has been doing business with for years.  They greeted us with warm smiles, offered apple cake to celebrate a colleague’s birthday, mused about the state of the economy, the dilemma of finding employees willing to work their early morning hours and decided the ‘ris de veau’ was not as fresh as it could be.  As we made our rounds, the chef explained how the food market had changed over the years.  Tight European food regulations mean that all imported meat must be pre-packaged with date and origin.  When choosing fresh meat, one learns to rely heavily on your local merchant’s reputation and suppliers of origin.

Supermarket produce has been sitting around awhile…

One merchant took us to his unloading dock and explained how he imported fresh herbs from around the world.  In short, the average imported fruit or vegetable we buy in the supermarket has been in the country for at least four days since it arrived at the unloading dock.  Exhibit A: Chives from Israel.  Reality is the produce was actually picked and exported within 24 hours from a number of co-operatives.  The produce arrives in large pallets and must then be sorted by co-operative and is finally re-packaged in quantities ordered by supermarket chains and restaurants.  I suddenly realised why the quality of produce on our supermarket shelves pales in comparison to the fresh quality available to professionals in the food business!

We got a cup of coffee somewhere around 6.30 AM and closed the place down at 7.00 AM with the first rays of morning light and sounds of rush hour traffic.  

A morning wake-up well worth the journey.