Saturday, 6 January, 2018
Every year, at the Geffrye Museum – a museum set in 18th century almshouses that explores the home from 1600 to the present day. It shows London living rooms and gardens and home life through the centuries, “reflecting changes in society, behaviour, style and taste” – on twelfth night 6th January, they ritually burn all of the greenery that has been used to decorate the Christmas themed rooms. The burning of the holly and the ivy is a lovely thing to watch. They add in carolling, hot cider and fruit cake before the large bonfire is built and people gather around to stare at the flames, and chat and sing. I’ve been there many times for this ceremony.
On the 7th January this year the Geffrye is closing for two years for redevelopment. The upper floor will now be part of the museum. Although I’ve seen the bonfire celebrations gain some recognition, this year as I approached on the other side of the road, I could tell its popularity had swelled. In fact, there were queues at each gate entry and all along the road people were still arriving or walking away in search of food until entry was easier. I’d never seen this before.
The Geffrye is in Shoreditch, the far reaches of Hackney, near Old Street, and Hoxton stations. This is a trendy area with lots of night life, street art, restaurants, along with the history. It’s also the home of Vietnamese restaurants. Not just a few, but a whole community of them stretching along Kingsland Road and Old Street.
We did have a favourite for a while. We were introduced to it by a Vietnamese couple so knew that it was the sort of food they cooked themselves and ate routinely in the Hanoi region. We’d go regularly and we had our favourite dishes – Hanoi Fish, (Chả Cá Thăng Long – turmeric fish with dill) – a dish I still make – and Buda Aubergine – eggplant steamed whole and stuffed with tofu, mung bean and seasonable vegetables. Then it closed. Tragedy. We haven’t found a replacement, although I keep looking.
Seeing the crowds, I headed for the Green Papaya – although many were going to the very popular and crowded Song Que, trailing along the normally peaceful street .
Is Green Papaya a favourite, a replace for Que Viet? No! But it will do. Although it’s a very trendy cafe, with the more favoured branch being in Hackney Central, it was empty.
I can’t get used to the prices of Vietnamese food here in London. The grilled pork dish is £8.50, tea is £1.50. The pork is belly pork, so fatty. The flavour is there, though.
I once said Vietnamese food might be the one I’d choose if told I had to eat only one cuisine for the rest of my life. Perhaps. I’m coming around to Modern British though. British food has had too harsh a reputation for far too long. That’s a topic for another day!
Then back to the museum, where the queues had died down and so too had the bonfire. This meant I didn’t get to see the leaping flames but did mean people had wandered away from the fire and I could stand close, with the smell of the wood and ashes, and the warm glow of the fire.
From the Geffrye museum site: “Although the main museum building and period gardens are closed, there will still be plenty of reasons to come to the Geffrye. Throughout closure we will run a programme of events and activities in our front gardens. The restored almshouse will also be open for tours on certain dates throughout the year.”
And if you can’t wait till 2020, you can take a virtual tour!