Wigan Album

I loved the fruit market, just outside the Market Hall proper, smelling distinctly of fruit and veg and flowers....you don't get the smell of fruit and vegetables in shops anymore. The fruit and veg areas in Supermarkets just don't have it. I can remember it at Christmas-time when there were tangerines covered in tissue paper with foreign writing on, and boxes of dates....thigs we only saw at Christmas back then, not all year round.

Like those witty advertisement boards: Tickle your taste spuds! and Just picked for juiciness!, I would have walked and perused around those stalls many a time but can't remember ever having seen them, are they still produced and displayed to entice shoppers to buy I wonder, - if they notice them - that is.

Joe Heyes' stall

So true Irene, and they admit that their fruit and vegetables may have been in oxygen free storage for months. I'd love to have a good sniff at those bunches of bouquet garni and pot herbs too hanging from the rail, and did the woman eventually buy a melon?

I love the smell of pot-herbs, Cyril, carrot and onion and turnip and cabbage all cut up small, and the stallholder always asked if you wanted a bit of thyme to go with it. Unfortunately, I saw some pot-herbs in the market some time ago that had all the above....plus peppers....NO! I like peppers but they don't belong in good old Lancashire pot-herbs.

Pot herbs with peppers mmm- maybe they give you a sprig of Oregano instead of Thyme to make Lombardy pot herbs Irene. Those Italians shall be nicking the recipe and putting a protected designation of origin (PDO) on them next.

There's no peppers or oregano poking their noses in MY pot-herbs, young Cyril, so think on!

You don't see Pot Herbs in supermarkets!
My mam always put them in broth, I hated broth. I swore I would never make it when I grew up and I never have. Although I have put them in soup. They also remind me of Nip Bone, a bunch was always hanging on a hook in the old house we lived in.

Veronica did you mean Knit Bone a common name for Comfrey which was used in folk remedies to help sprained and broken bones to mend. My Granddad in Aspul l always grew a clump in the back garden for this very purpose.

The police may be planning an early morning raid Irene, they may possibly be thinking we're on about a different kind of Pot Herbs.

Broth made with pot herbs and barley was a staple at one time, and what a welcoming warmth it was coming home to on a cold winters day, though as you say Veronica not to everyone's taste, but you couldn't pick and choose, you either ate what was given or go without.

I too remember the bunches of Knit Bone, they were hardly ever used, but always hung up ready if needed.

I still put pot-herbs, barley and thyme in stew, Cyril, and cook it very slowly all day in the slow cooker. If the drug squad come they won't be able to resist the smell and will let me off for a nice bowl of ox-tail! However, as far as the drugs go, they'll be lucky if they find a Lem-Sip in our house!

Yes that sounds more logical Carolaen! I've always said nip bone though! I can see it now hanging on a hook! I don't remember it being used though. Cyril I had to eat every bit of the broth, I couldn't move from the table until I had eaten it. There was all sorts in it, oxtail, stewing beef vegetables of all description. If there was any left, for days after my dad ate it. It must have been warmed up over and over again! ugh! It was stone cold by the time I'd finished it. That's why I can't eat it now. All the while my dad would be saying ''there's folk starving all over"! I used to think - well they can have this flaming broth!

That tickled me, Veronica!! Brilliant! I'll be smiling for days every time I remember you thinking that! I'll ask Ethel to leave you some broth in a saucepan whilst you're looking after Miss Lewis and her Mother! (Our Cyril wonders what I'm on about!). xx

I bet the Jessons didn't have broth Irene - Cook wouldn't have dared serve it. Bobby and Margaret would have run away from home! God forbid. ;o))

I've been to Cork in Ireland several times and always go to the English Market. Loads of stalls just like this and also loads of butchers stalls selling fabulous steak and beef. Best of all about a dozen fishmongers which sell the finest seafood and fish straight from the sea. One of these stalls is used in the comedy Young Offenders, about two Irish scallies7, very funny though a lot of swearing!

Veronica, your dad must have enjoyed eating it as the Unami flavours would have developed over time, chefs do say that some food is better for having been left in the fridge for a day or so, though I'd draw the line at the next day, after that and it would be put out for the local foxes.

Dave the Young Offenders is very funny with the capers they get up to and in my opinion all that swearing isn't needed, why do these so called alternative comedies such as this and Mrs Brown need to have effing and jeffing in every sentence along with a crew member holding up a caption card ordering the audience to laugh. Laurel & Hardy, Morecambe & Wise, Norman Wisdom etc. never used any swear words to raise a laugh with an audience.

Cyril after my mam died he used to make It himself in a pressure cooker! It still smelled the same,horrible! He absolutely relished it. I knew he'd been cooking it as soon as I walked through the door. There was no way he was giving up his broth!
I've been to Ireland a few times over the last few years, it's just like stepping back in time,
( apart from Dublin) I could live there and feel at home, in all the quaintly named places.

Cyril, well-said about the bad language. One of my pet hates and, as you truly say, totally unnecessary.