A Taste of North London's diversity

GREEN LANES, LONDON

Beth’s students are craving Mexican food.  It’s true that despite the tremendous diversity in London, Mexican food and culture is not featured. But many others are!

Anna Mae's Mac and Cheese

Vats of seafood paella

Saturday a week ago we joined new acquaintances at the Green Lanes Food Festival down the High Road from where we live.  For six full blocks from the Salisbury Pub south to the Babinondas Greek restaurant near the Manor House Tube Station we found a wonderful variety of food.  Several Turkish stalls served Lahmacun, a “pizza” wrapped up in foil like a burrito.  A Spanish stall featured two snow-saucer-sized woks in which two varieties of paella – mussels, sausage, saffron rice -- bubbled away.  Abby and I enjoyed a plate of injera (spongy flat bread) loaded with five filling at an Ethiopian stall.  Two stalls near each other – one flying the Union Jack and the other the French tri-color -- competed with fabulous savory or sweet Breton-style buckwheat crepes.  Pig-on-a-spit sandwiches, fresh coconuts with a straw inserted, falafel, smoothies of all varieties, Trinidadian B-B-Q, Jamaican jerked chicken, grilled sardines, fudge, cup cakes, the most amazing creamy strawberry ice cream and a stall featuring Anna Mae’s American-style Mac and Cheese cooked up in a Mayflower sized vat: they each competed for our attention.

We ended our gastronomic tour of north London back at the Salisbury Pub, a quintessential Victorian corner pub.  An intricate mosaic floor leads 20 feet from the entrance to the middle of the large, wood paneled room.  Its expansive bar fills the center of the space serving patrons from three sides.   Behind the bar are mirrored panels and dozens of bottles of single malt whiskeys and liquor.  On the bar itself is a selection of over 10 draft ales, bitters, stouts and a German lager.  Cut glass windows look back out on  Green Lanes' main street and stream of people.  Inside, patrons are standing at the bar and seated around an assortment of booths and tables.  We finally found room to sit in the back “family” room, which sported a bright white-and-black checkered floor.  We crowded around a table with six chairs for the eight of us.  In the center of the room were two families with small children climbing up on the couches looking very much like they were at home in their living room.  They ate chips and grilled cheese sandwiches.  We drank our beer and reminisced on the food from the fair.  The band outside played 60’s rock and roll cover tunes.

Peter