Our Man in Edinburgh: Stockbridge Market

If, like me, you love your food tasty and (where possible) local, then Edinburgh is definitely a great place to be. With an enormously diverse range of eateries for every occasion and an ever-growing selection of local producers, it really does spoil us. To celebrate this, I’m going to occasionally write about some of my favourites, and hopefully might get a few suggestions in the process. So, let Our Man in Edinburgh begin!

For those of you not put off by the awful pun (it was entirely unintentional, I promise) in the previous paragraph, I’d like to introduce you to one of my favourite places for buying good local food - the Stockbridge Market.

It doesn’t quite have the grandiose backdrop of Edinburgh Castle, which Edinburgh’s other leading (and slightly larger) weekend market does up on Castle Terrace, but Stockbridge boasts its collection of yellow and white pop-up gazebos come wind, rain and shine. I can tell you that for certain.

I’m very fortunate to have the market located virtually on my doorstep and I’m very happy to say that it’s become a staple of my weekly shopping. It’s also growing in popularity as word spreads, which really showed last weekend when you could barely get through the throng at lunchtime. Can people being hungry for local produce be bad? No, I really don’t think it can.

Aside from the environmental benefits of food which hasn’t been flown in from abroad and the benefits to the local economy derived from shopping directly from local producers, I also firmly believe that you get a good deal.

Obviously buying meat - or other produce, for that matter - from a market is going to cost more than buying a supermarket’s value range processed ‘meat’, but when compared to the produce at the top of the range, are the margins all that different? And considering how much better the quality is, I think it’s totally worth it. Put it this way - morality aside - you wouldn’t buy your cocaine from someone you thought was cutting it down with chalk; so why would you accept it in your meat?

The other great thing about cutting out down the supply chain is that the person selling it to you knows exactly where it’s come from; you don’t get that elsewhere, as recent equine evidence has rather brought out of the shadows.

But less about why I love local food - Stockbridge Market has some excellent producers; here are my top five:

Liddsdale Free Range Meats: These lovely people rear their livestock down in the Boarders and produce some fantastic products. I loved their lamb mince when I tried it, and I now always have a pack of their sausages in my freezer - it was these that made my Grown Up Beans and Sausages! Their eggs also helped make my Pancake day crêpes.

Pollingtons: A company which seems to always be on the go, bringing meats and cheeses from the continent to the people of Edinburgh and East Lothian. Their salame Milano has brightened up many a sandwich during the week.

Tweed Valley Organics: The man here seems to have an inexhaustible supply of bizarre berets, but the leeks, onions and potatoes are now a staple of my cupboards.

The Chocolate Tree: I feel this Bruntsfield-based company need very little explanation. Their chocolate is simply superb.

Ridley’s Fish and Game: Saving my favourite for last, it’s the producer that least counts as ‘local’. Northumbria isn’t very far away at all though, so I’m sure I would forgive them if they had a mediocre range; luckily they have an excellent range of fresh meats, pies and fish so I’m definitely on board. It is thanks to these lovely people - and they are really nice - that I’ve had my venison stew, pheasant red curry and have packs of both meats in my freezer. The brace of pheasant hung on the railings beside their stall also make me very happy.

If that’s got your mouth watering, I strongly suggest that you go along. Stockbridge Market is in the square beside the bridge, on Kerr Street (EH3 6TQ, if that helps) every Sunday of the year from 11am to 5pm. A larger list of producers can be found on their website and they’re also on Twitter.

Do you have a favourite producer at the market? If so let me know who, so I can check them out.

Craig (74 Posts)

Edinburgh-dwelling, baking and food-obsessed, twenty-something adventure enthusiast. Runs on liberal amounts of coffee, cheese, cake and gin; bribable with same.