The stem was twice as thick as a middle finger and as hairy as a spider’s leg. It ended in a fat green bulb which had been split open by six white petals. Each was as big as a sweaty palm, and a fleshy purple stamen thrust from between their limp applause. It bobbed obscenely as I picked it up.

‘Eat the whole thing and you’ll satisfy even the most demanding of ladies,’ the stall keeper told me with an oily leer.

‘How much?’ I asked. He shrugged, pulled on his earlobe and contrived to look as though the question hadn't crossed his mind until that very moment.

‘Say half a dozen milk teeth,’ he decided.

I nodded non-committally and strolled down the table to examine a cluster of fruits which looked a little like plastic grapes. The berries were as big as a thumbnail, and so hard and green that they looked more like a promise of indigestion than anything else.

‘Wards off dogs,’ the stall keeper promised.

‘I like dogs,’ I said.

‘Wards off wolves too,’ he added hopefully but I had already moved on to what I had wanted all along.

The seed pods were as yellow as turmeric and as sweet smelling as sandalwood. They were perfectly dessicated, and the seeds within rattled like maracas when I picked them up. They would have made a fine pot pouri. As food they looked as appetising as wood shavings, but I knew their worth.

‘What are these?’ I asked ingenuously.

‘Slake pods,’ the stall keeper told me. ‘Boil one in enough water and it will feed six people for a day. Tastes good, too.’

I raised a questioning eyebrow and the stall keeper, scenting a sale, spat into his hand and offered it to me.

‘My word on it,’ he said ‘And all I ask in return is the same weight in hair.’

I pretended to hesitate, then shrugged and grasped his sticky hand. It was a fair price, and I’d already spent a morning looking for them.

‘Blond good enough for you?’ I asked, producing a paper bag of shorn hair.

‘Lovely,’ he said, rubbing his hands eagerly together. ‘Lovely.’

It was always a pleasure to go shopping at the market.