Saturday & Sunday Shopping: The Lambeth Country Fair

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We need no excuse to visit the glorious Brockwell Park - with its grassy loveliness and enviable lido – but this weekend there is every more reason to go. Today and tomorrow this Herne Hill haven is turned into a heaven of all things marvelous; the Lambeth Country Show is in town and boy should you go.

I have my handwritten notes of last year’s traders, and a confirmed list of this year’s vendors from the organisers, but I was so engaged by one particular participant’s tale that I thought her story sums up exactly why we should all get along to Brockwell Park today and support this unique and enterprising event. Eddie’s Chilli Jam (visit the website here) is the essence of mixing cultures and flavours; the spirit of the Lambeth Country Show in a jar. Not just sheep on a village green; the Lambeth Country Show is a celebration of diversity, of mixing things up a bit, from which only good things can happen.

In the early 1960’s husband and wife Edwin (Eddie “Red Rum”) Ellis and Lillian moved to London from the West Indies, Mrs Ellis was engaged by a top London hotel and it was there that she fell in love with the very British pastime of high tea. On high days and holidays Lillian would share her new found passion with her family, gleefully passing around the gorgeous little miniature conserves her bosses had sent home for her to share. No one loved these jams more than Eddie, who would add the sweet concoctions to his piled plate of savoury West Indian fayre.  It was on Eddie’s plate that two worlds’s met and Eddie’s Chilli Jam was born.
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Today daughter, Mo Ellis, lovingly prepares Eddie’s Chilli jam in small, hand cooked; oven top batches and all her products are free from artificial colours, flavours and preservatives, making them suitable for vegetarians.

I suggest pairing Eddie's Chilli Jam with a hunk of crumbly English cheddar, a cold sausage sandwich or a picnic lunch of delicious Scotch eggs.

You can download a list of traders here

Lawrence Roullier White’s monthly shopping page appears in the SE Magazines group of publications; click here to read on line.

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