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London, England. Traditional England is being reborn and I've just had a sample on my plate. I begin with breakfast at East London's Borough market, a vegetarian omelet green with fresh herbs and stuffed with ripe tomatoes, peppers, and tangy Cheddar cheese, washed down with a brisk espresso from a choice of nearly 40 different beans. Across the way the aroma of frying sausages at Sillfield Farms is irresistible, the choice varying from a mixture of pheasant and venison, lamb with mint, wild boar with Chianti, and Spanish chorizo. Plain sausages are made with rare breed pork from breeds such as Middle White and Saddle Back, organically raised. "They taste like the old days", beams Robert Burton from beneath his brown Derby hat, "and they won't burst with a bang, we've added no bread fillers here."

This is no ordinary farmers' market. Borough dates back to the Romans and now shelters beneath Victorian railroad arches in the shadow of Southwark cathedral in South London on the banks of the Thames. Over the last 10 years, it has become a center for international produce, all of it artisan. At Brindisa, Roger Cortina imports the real Serrano ham from black foot Ibérico pigs: "there's a strong sense here of looking for artisan stuff, for the real thing," he says. I pass golden mounds of Echiré butter from the Loire in France, awarded an appellation controllée d'origine guarantee of quality.

 Cheese vendors, each with their own stand, come from all over England, Wales, and one from Normandy. I stop to chat with Maja Binder, a cheesemaker from Germany who has lived in Ireland for 16 years. "There are more and more good cheesemakers in Ireland now", she says. "At the start it was hard, like mission work". She had to wait for a place among the more than 50 stalls in the market, and now comes once a month to sell both cheese and the seaweed products made by her husband, Olbeier Beaujouan. The merchants at Borough are an eclectic bunch and Olbeier comes from Toulon in France.

I spot my friend Prue Leith, a star of the British food scene. Her latest project is the Hoxton Apprentice, a restaurant that is the training ground for troubled young people, sponsored by the charity Training for Life. Participants at The Hoxton Apprentice stay only six months, working both in the kitchen and out front with professional staff in a proportion of one to one. A social worker also keeps an eye on the group of a dozen. "This first group is almost done, and we've had only three dropouts", says Prue Leith, "not bad. We're aiming to turn out employable youngsters -- they are not chefs, not yet, though they may be one day." The Apprentice is in Hoxton Square, near the City financial district, and already it buzzes every night with diners who are young and local, attracted by the modest prices and imaginative menu.

Given the inexperienced staff, the Apprentice's menu must be "foolproof", says Prue Leith. It includes simple cold plates such as a refreshing Cambodian salad of crab and shrimps with pomegranate, and a white bean salad with chorizo and mint. I tuck into a giant pork rib bathed in honey, soy, and garlic, after passing over a salmon cake with hollandaise sauce. "We had a run around with that," says Prue, "but now they can all make real hollandaise!"

After a substantial breakfast and a three-course lunch, I cannot seriously think I have room for afternoon tea, but we are in England after all. Out in the countryside near Oxford, we turn down a country lane to the immaculately restored complex of Daylesford Farms. Daylesford is everything an artisan farmer would love to be, but so often lacks the capital to achieve. The pedigree dairy herd grazes organic grass and lives in stone barns with doors of a soft Cotswold green. The Cheddar cheese made from their unpasteurized milk is aged for nine months in ideal climate-controlled conditions before being released for sale in the farm shop with a wide selection of local and international organic foods.

Heritage tomatoes come from the Daylesford organic garden and a master baker oversees dozens of breads, fruit tarts and cakes. I opt for a slice of deliciously moist carrot cake with raisins, flanked by a chunk of Cheddar. In Yorkshire where I was born, "A slice of cake without the cheese, is like a kiss without the squeeze". If this is the new England, perhaps I made a mistake leaving it behind.

For more information, visit: www.boroughmarket.org.uk; www.daylesfordorganic.com
Hoxton Apprentice, tel. 020.7749.2828.

CAMBODIAN SEAFOOD SALAD

            This refreshing salad from London's Hoxton Apprentice restaurant can be completely prepared ahead, needing only quick assembly at the last minute.

1/2 a small melon
1 small papaya
1/2 an English cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
4 medium white radishes (about 4 ounces), trimmed and diced
6 1/2-ounce can crabmeat, drained
4 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
4 mint sprigs

Thai dressing
4 tablespoons fish sauce (nam pla)
4 tablespoons canned coconut cream
Grated zest and juice 1 lime
1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2-inch piece lemon grass, peeled and finely chopped
Salt and pepper

To finish
1 pomegranate
20 large cooked, peeled shrimps (about 3/4 pound)

4 1-cup ramekins or deep bowls

To prepare salad: Discard seeds from melon and scoop flesh into small balls. Halve papaya, discard seeds and scoop flesh also into balls. Put melon and papaya balls with cucumber and radish dice in a bowl. For dressing: Whisk all ingredients together, taste and adjust seasoning.

To assemble salad: Mix crabmeat with fruits, vegetables, and chopped mint, tossing them with 2 forks. Mix with dressing. Press salad into 4 ramekins or bowls, cover and refrigerate up to 2 hours. To extract pomegranate seeds, score skin in quarters and break fruit open along the cuts. Push skin with your thumbs so seeds pop out into a bowl. Pick out any bits of pith.

To finish: Unmold salads onto 4 plates and top with a mint sprig. Arrange shrimps around edge of the plates and sprinkle with pomegranate seeds. Serves 4 as a main course, 6 as appetizer.

© 2004, Anne Willan. Distributed by Tribune Media Services International.

Anne Willan is the founder of the famous French cooking school, LaVarenne, and has also served as president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She is the author of over a dozen internationally published cookbooks, including her latest book, A Cook’s Book of Quick Fixes & Kitchen Tips ( John Wiley & Sons, September 2005).