Smithfield: Meat Marketing 101
When you tell people you’re going to a meat market at 3am on a Wednesday morning, they tend to think that you plan on gracing one of those late-night, bump-and-grind, sweat-and-sex hotspots peppered throughout any midsize city that boasts any semblance of nightlife.
If this is what you’re expecting when you plan your trip to Smithfield Market, you’re in for one hell of a wakeup call.
Smithfield Market has existed in one form or another since 1123–Friends, that’s almost NINE HUNDRED (900) YEARS!* And it shows–these guys (and they are–not surprisingly–mostly guys) have certainly mastered the art of hocking meat, cheese, and the odd baked good.
The best part about Smithfield is how gosh-darn inexpensive it is. A one-kilo wheel of brie (swoon) can be picked up for a fiver, a sack o’ mincemeat for even less than that. But lest you be tempted to raise a suspicious eyebrow, fear not! The method behind these mad prices–naturally–has to do with wholesale economies of scale. Let’s not talk econ, though; let’s talk about meat and how to get it on the cheap.
How to get meat on the cheap
Selling wives: Smithfield's more dubious past
Smithfield Market is open daily from 11pm until 8am, hours that make it easy to confuse with other, rather more dubious meat markets. Here’s a map. Get off at Farringdon or Barbican tubes, but if you plan on sojourning over after 12:30am or so, remember that the tube will not be running! That said, bus routes 4, 55, 56, 143, and 253 will get you close-ish to the Market. It is a nice walk, though, from Angel or even King’s Cross if you’re into late night strolls!**
Oh, and did I mention there’s a pub? Swell.
*to put it in perspective, our Norman buddy Willy I had only just sailed over to nestle the Anglo-Saxons under his thumb a mere 60 years earlier.
**generally, I do adore late night strolls, but on this particular night, it was pissing rain and blowing some fierce gale-force winds that busted my brolly. wah.
2 Comments
You did tell us there is a pub – but you neglected to tell us it was open through the night until just after the market shuts as office workers are on their way to daily grind. A very useful facility to the thirsty student.
I know this stuff from my drinking days! Smithfield market pub is where a mate of mine chatted up an attractive dark woman only to discover she was an attractive dark man who dressed in women’s clothes. Ah, London life – you can’t beat it.
We did hear about the pub and after Heather’s write up a couple of intrepid editors went looking for it ourselves late one evening (when we had been kicked out of all the other pubs). Unfortunately it was a Saturday night and the market was closed as, alas, was the pub.