Good Food For Life

Just in case you're wondering, Uhuru means Freedom in Swahili!  This shop started life in 1974, when a group of students started selling crafts from the third world. It developed into a whole-foods shop and has been in its current location since 1977.
I found the staff friendly and helpful.  It's a place where you can buy items like spinach pakora, vegetable samosa and organic bean and vegetable pasties. In the week (Monday to Friday) there's home made soup, suitable for vegans.
Uhuru Wholefoods
48 Cowley Road
Oxford
OX4 1HZ

Tel: 01865 248249

The Green Village sells a wide range of Lebanese and Mediterranean produce, like falafel, hummus, olives, pomegranate molasses and cakes and sweets.
I like to look at the display in the window, where you can see items like baklava, borma, filo fingers and namoura. 
The Green Village
78A Cowley Road
Oxford
Oxfordshire
OX4 1JB

Tel: 01865 790922

The Eastern and Continental Store (which locally is known simply just as "the Continental") has been on Cowley Road since 1975.  It sells an amazing range of foods from Africa, Asia, Europe and South America:

Eastern & Continental Store
152 Cowley Road
Oxford
OX4 1JJ

Tel: 01865 794226

This bakery, in a Cowley back street has been run by Roy Gibbons's family for at least four generations.
I liked the "Mobile Free Zone" sign on the shop wall!  Sadly stocks were low when I got there on a Saturday lunchtime (it's a long way from Nantwich). However I wasn't too late to buy what Derek Cooper, (the former presenter of Radio 4's Food Programme), described as some of the best bread he had ever tasted:
The bakery nearly closed down, when they had a problem with a boiler, but locals were so upset they formed the Friends of Gibbons Bakery to save this much loved Oxford bakery.


Gibbons Bakery
16 Hertford Street
Cowley
Oxford
OX4 3AJ

Tel: 01865 241136

Web: www.cinox.demon.co.uk/Gibbons

The Covered Market in Oxford was opened 1774, and is one of my favourites.  If you enter from the entrance on The High:
who started in this market and now have 10 outlets in the UK, and also trade in Saudi Arabia, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.

It was originally built for butchers (and had 40 shops), to clear "untidy, messy and unsavoury stalls" from the streets of Oxford.  Today there's just four butchers, which are smart and attractive:
The market is the place to get your Oxford sausage, originally made with veal as well as pork and was also skinless.

to restaurants like The Big Bang, and also caters for vegetarians with seven types of vegetarian sausage:
He's also the biggest pie maker in Oxford:
and will also sell you some Oxford Sauce to go with it.

have been trading since 1896, and also sell game.

specialise in organic meats.  According to their web site, they are the proud owners of the world's oldest ham!  They take their cooking seriously around here so it was nice to see bags of bones for making stock here as well.

have over 50 different species available, and sell live crabs and lobster:
Moo Moo's has a cult status amongst the students:
and does an amazing number of milk shakes and smoothies.

Not every stall is food. I've been a regular customer at Next to Nothing over the years:

Towards the Market Street entrance there's Bolitas:
which are Brazilian cheese flavoured balls, made with tapioca flour, cheddar cheese, free range eggs and milk:


I've saved my favourite shop for the end, Robert Pouget's Oxford Cheese Company:

I've not visited Oxford since writing this blog, so a visit was long overdue.

I wanted my first post to be somewhere really special, so was wondering whether it should be Oxford's fantastic market, or one of Oxford's great food shops - like Maison Blanc.

I was on the train, heading for Oxford, reading the Daily Info, when I read a very favourable report about Chateau Gateau:
a new arrival on St Clements.

I was really glad I found this shop!  The owner is a French man, Sebastien Lenglet, who is from Soissons, and he's passionate about what he does.

The kitchen is at the back of the shop: