By Community correspondent Rachel Bowen Between Friday 11th September and Sunday 13th September, Purley High Street played host to a French market, organised by Croydon Enterprise. Boasting stalls selling a huge variety of food types, from jams to olives and from sweets to stuffed vine leaves, as well as stalls selling wooden goods, handbags and shoes, the market was not perhaps entirely French in available produce but certainly maintained the atmosphere of an authentic French market, complete with air heavy with the stench of soft cheese.

Arriving with my sister to sample the delicacies of France, we were immediately hailed by an olive seller who offered us free samples of his most popular flavour. Having never before eaten olives, after being warned off by friends who assured us they wouldn’t be to our taste, we were both naturally curious, and agreed to give them a go. Unfortunately, it took around a second for our friends’ predictions to be proved correct: not only did we not like olives, but they filled our mouths with a salty disgustingness comparable only to the voluntary drinking of seawater.

Moving on quickly to other stalls, we found food items much more appetising: a jam and mustard stall, for instance, offering tasters such delights as rhubarb and chestnut jams, and curry mustard – all quite tasty separately, but when eaten one after the other, leading to a very odd combination of flavours. At a cake stand, we bought an apple tart and a Madeleine, both of which were genuinely delicious. Almost every stall offered samples, and so we tried a great variety of foods – goat’s cheese, smoked sausage, potatoes cooked with cream and bacon – all of which were unexpectedly delicious.

After almost two hours – a long time spent looking round only about ten stalls, but we kept going back to get more samples of our favourites – we decided to leave. After buying a container full of the creamy potato to help us on the walk back up the hill, we began the trudge home. Although we didn’t buy a great deal, the market provided for both of us an opportunity to try new foods which otherwise we would never have even looked at, and so in that sense, it was a great success.