Sanciau Berrichon (Apple Pancake)

The old Berry province is situated just to our east. At la Chandeleur (Candlemas) this typical Berrichon dish would be served. Sanciaux are thick pancakes with apples, guaranteed to appeal to children and adults alike. They are served either as a dessert, or as an afternoon snack.

Ingredients

125 ml milk

60 g flour

1 egg

A pinch of salt

2 apples (ideally of course a local variety such as Reine des Reinettes de Saint Martin d'Auxigny, Reinette du Berry or Belle de Boskoop)

20 g butter

A dash of liqueur or spirits (optional. I used Calvados but Poire Williams is also used)

Sugar (some people use cinnamon sugar)

Method

1. Mix the milk, flour, egg and salt together in a jug. I used a stick blender.
2. Peel, core and slice the apples.
3. Gently fry the apple slices in the butter until they are golden.
4. Add a dash of Calvados and set it alight.
5. Spread the apple out evenly in the pan then carefully pour in the batter.
6. Cook on low heat for 7 minutes.
7. Put a plate over your pan and tip the pancake out onto the plate, then slide back into the pan to cook the other side for 3 minutes.
8. Cut the pancake into quarters and serve warm, sprinkled with sugar.

 

 

Don't Bother Going to Look

A week ago I was going to write a blog post about how great the triangular park with the chapel in it at the end of our street was looking. It was a riot of wild flowers in the grass, with orchids, clover, buttercups and daisies. Just as well I didn't get to it, because the day after I took these photos it was mowed by a municipal worker. What a waste. 

Early Spider Orchid Ophrys sphegodes (Fr. Ophrys araignée) in the flower rich sward.

Female Hairy-footed Flower Bee Anthophora plumipes (Fr. Anthophore aux pattes poilues) nectaring on Red Clover Trifolium pratense (Fr. Trèfle des prés).

Mowing should be done at this time of year (April to August) to create a mosaic, so you mow bits this month and other bits next month. This allows different lengths of vegetation, which suit different species, ensures all plant species get a chance to flower and set seed, and that there is a continuous supply of nectar for insects that need it.

Hotel Arnaldo Aquila d'Oro

I wrote last Saturday about Rubiera, and mentioned I'd be writing about the hotel another day. This is that day.

I had booked a room at the Hotel Arnaldo Aquila d'Oro, via an online booking engine. The price (40€61) seemed so much of a bargain that certain people feared it was some sort of scam. It turned out not to be, just a combination of sheer good luck and doggedness on my behalf.

The exterior of the hotel makes promises the interior lives up to.

From their own website:

HOTEL ARNALDO AQUILA D'ORO

is located in an old 15th century building that once housed a post station with stables for horses and an inn to accommodate pilgrims passing through Rubiera.

The hotel is located in the same building as the Arnaldo Clinica Gastronomica restaurant, and both have been owned and managed by the same family for three generations. Since Arnaldo and Lina bought the inn in 1936, many changes, renovations and improvements have been made, while maintaining the same elegantly rustic flavour as in the past.

 And I couldn't have put it better myself.

Our room was large, comfortable, pleasantly cool, and nicely furnished with proper antiques (not just granny's old stuff). The bathroom was similar.

You will have noticed mention of the Arnaldo Clinica Gastronomica restaurant. That's the hotel's own 1* Michelin star restaurant. I suspect that the fact that the restaurant doesn't open on Sunday evenings is the reason the hotel was so amazingly priced for us. We ate out at a perfectly acceptable restaurant about 100 metres from the hotel.

Breakfast was an entirely different matter. Our booking included breakfast at the hotel, and I had checked by email that we had enough time for a relaxed breakfast before departing for the parmesan farm. They assured us we did, so as soon as we felt it was polite we went downstairs, grabbed a table under the arcade, and wandered in to check out our options.

Man looking overwhelmed by what he saw in the breakfast room.

The breakfast buffet was probably the most comprehensive I have seen in Europe. There were the staples of multiple varieties of breads, jams and pastries, cheese and meat (presumably for any Dutch clients) dairy, cereals, a vast range of fruit juices and teas, fresh and stewed fruit. Coffee was ordered from the nice waitress at the tea and coffee bar and delivered to the table. I could have spent another hour being stylish and elegant, but parmesan was calling.

More food than you can shake a stick at

 The Hotel Arnaldo Aquila d'Oro's website is here.

New in the Orchard This Year

The results of neglect are clear to see in the orchard, and one of those results is several species new to the place in April. None of them are rare, but I haven't recorded them in the orchard before. Neglect, with nothing more than the vegetation being slashed by Sylviane early in the year, and one of her horses being put to pasture in the potager for a few days, is so far delivering excellent biodiversity observations.

 

Golden Ground Beetle Carabus auratus (Fr. Carabe doré), not uncommon, but increasingly threatened by pesticides.

Green-winged Orchid Anacamptis morio (Fr. Orchis buffon) is abundant locally, and can form large colonies, but has never before popped up in the orchard.

Monkey Orchid Orchis simia (Fr. Orchis singe) can also form large colonies, but has never appeared in the orchard before.

One of the leaf beetles, Chrysolina bankii (Fr. Chrysomèle de Banks), a species which is localised, but can be abundant where it occurs. Its favourite food plant is ribwort plantain, which the orchard has in abundance.

Green Hairstreak Callophrys rubi (Fr. Thècle de la ronce) butterfly, a species that eats such a wide range of plants as a caterpillar that you could see it in almost any habitat in the Touraine Loire Valley.

Look Out for Dog Rose in the Touraine Loire Valley

Dog Rose Rosa canina (Fr. Rosier des chiens).

This is an abundant species in hedges and woodlands, especially in the lowlands. It has several ecotypes, or subspecies that have evolved to grow in different habitats or conditions. Many pink flowering cultivated rose varieties have R. canina somewhere in their ancestry. The species always has single (or simple) flowers.

 

The name Dog Rose comes from the ancient belief that the root could be used to cure the bite of a rabid dog. The rosehips are called grattes-culs ('scratch arses') in French because the hairs inside could cause itchiness around the anus if you consumed badly prepared rosehip tea, jelly or syrup, once important tonics and sources of Vitamin C when other things were scarce.

 

The plant can grow up to 5 metres, in long arching canes with very prickly back curving thorns. They produce pale pink or white flowers in May and June and are pollinated by insects. The seeds are dispersed by birds.

 

One of the reasons Roe Deer are attracted to your garden and will eat your rose shoots and buds is because they grow up eating the wild Dog Roses in the forest and they are a favourite food.

 

The species is native to all the temperate zones of the Old World and naturalised in the New. Globally it is abundant, up to 1600 metres above sea level. 

 

 

It is heat (but not dry) loving and grows in a range of neutral to calcareous soil, tolerating lightly acid soil, but not waterlogged soil.

 

Both flowers and leaves are scented, especially if crushed. It is one of the species used in the perfume industry and in North Africa especially, for making simple culinary rosewater.

 

The plants are fairly disease resistant, but often have strange growths called bedeguar galls caused by a tiny wasp.

 

 

 

The old name for this rose is eglantine. You will still sometimes hear it called that, especially in France, but today the name is more properly given to Rosa rubiginosa.

 

There are two other peskily similar species of wild rose you may encounter. 

 

Field Rose Rosa arvensis (Fr. Rosier rampant) only has white flowers and the centre of the flower (the stigmae) are some bobbles on a 'column' (Dog Rose has the bobbles but not the 'column'). It's a bit smaller than Dog Rose and flowers at the same time. It is more shade tolerant and more lime loving than Dog Rose, and not quite so frequently encountered in the Touraine. Both species have abundant yellow pollen on anthers, but Dog Rose anthers turn brown.

Sweet Briar Rosa rubiginosa has bright pink flowers and is even more sun loving and much more lime loving than Dog Rose. The stigmae are bobbles in the middle of the flower, and it is much less abundant than the other two species. It is also smaller than Dog Rose and flowers a bit later (although the two species flowering season overlaps in June and July).

Further reading at Loire Valley Nature:

Galls https://loirenature.blogspot.com/2012/03/galls.html

It May Be "Too Old", but it Suits Me

Back in 2011 I bought a camera, and wrote about it here.

About two years ago I began to have problems with the on/off button being very sensitive - all I had to do was move the camera and it would turn itself off and on again. I tried to get it fixed, but it was "too old". I really like the camera so I have persevered with it - on and off (as it were)

And then last week on Leboncoin I saw someone advertising an identical camera in perfect condition. 

So for 45€ I now have a new (old) camera. 

Yay!

Out and About in the Claise Valley in Early April

My friend Ingrid and I took ourselves on a little nature outing to check on the state of the orchids in the Claise Valley around Chaumussay on 7 April. She wanted to practice with a new macro lens, so she took most of the photos. And we saw a lot of wildlife apart from just orchids. So here is a selection.

 

A Red-tailed Bumble Bee Bombus lapidarius (Fr. Bourdon des pierres) queen looking for a suitable place to set up her new colony.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Lady Orchid Orchis purpurea (Fr. Orchis pourpre) bud.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Male Green Fairy Longhorn moths Adela reaumurella (Fr. Adèle verdoyante) displaying on a Wayfaring Tree Viburnum lantana (Fr. Viorne lantane), waiting for females to appear.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Apple Blossom Beetle Tropinota hirta (Fr. Cétoine hérissée) on, you guessed it, apple blossom. The tree is a naturalised domestic apple I assume.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Lady Orchid.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

The remarkarble shared tower entries to a sweat bee Lasioglossum marginatum colony. One of the little bees who occupy these tiny tunnels is centre bottom.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Green Hairstreak Callophrys rubi (Fr. Thècle de la ronce) on apple blossom. This lovely butterfly has a very short flight season, but the numbers appear to be increasing. These days I see it every year, which was not the case in the past.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

The rare parasitic fly Gonia vacua. This one is male and covered in pollen.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

The Second World War Demarcation line memorial at Chaumussay, on the D42 between Preuilly sur Claise and le Grand Pressigny. Conveniently, one can park there, and there is a colony of Early Purple Orchids.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Early Purple Orchid Orchis mascula (Fr. Orchis male) and Blue Sedge Carex flacca (Fr. Laîche glauque).

Cowslips Primula veris (Fr. Coucou) on the roadside at Humeau.

Drinking Chocolate in a French Supermarket

There is a range of drinking chocolate  powders available in my local SuperU supermarket. They do their own brand, and there are the two French classic brands, Poulain and Banania. Plus a few other multinational brands, but no Cadbury's in sight.

The Poulain product is called 'Grand Arome' ('big scent') and is manufactured in the Touraine Loire Valley, where the company began, in the mid-19th century. The standard product is 32% cacao, made with cocoa sourced in Africa, and the rest is sugar from beets grown and processed in Europe. There are a few variations, with less sugar and more cocoa. It costs around €12 a kilo.

Chocolat Poulain was created in 1848 by Victor-Auguste Poulain, a confectionary maker from Blois. Since 2017, the company has been owned by Carambar, a French company specialising in confectionary that also owns the brands Terry's, Kréma, pastilles Vichy and Suchard, with five factories in France. The emblem of Poulain is a foal, as the word 'poulain' means 'foal'. The first Poulain boutique was in the former family home in Blois of the magician Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin, now open to the public as the Museum of Magic.

Along with Suchard (1826) and Menier (1836), Poulain is amongst the oldest chocolate brands in France and the first to engage in widespread image rich publicity campaigns. They also printed educational images which were offered free with their products, and introduced the idea of random half price vouchers which were distributed amongst their packaging for some lucky consumer to find by chance.

Banania was created in 1914 by journalist Pierre-Francois Lardet after a trip to South America where he encountered indigenous women making a drink from banana flour, cacao, cereal and sugar. It quickly became the market leader, largely thanks to generous donations of the product to the soldiers on the front line, and the use of a Senegalese sharpshooter as the brand emblem. After the Second World War though this overt association with colonialism became controversial and Poulain and Nesquik were the market leaders. Banania has struggled ever since to maintain its market share and in 2019 it closed its last factory in France. The product is now made in Germany.

A Town Called Rubiera

Rubiera is a town in the Province of Reggio Emilia in the Italy, and is about 10 kilometres west of Modena. We stayed there for one night last year on our way down to Florence.

We stayed in a really nice, old fashioned, but very clean and comfortable 3*** hotel that just happens to have a Michelin starred restaurant. Unfortunately, the restaurant doesn't open on Sunday nights, which is probably the reason we were able to stay in an elegant, old world 3*** hotel with free breakfast for 40€. But more of that another day.

It was stinking hot when we arrived, but we had to have a proper walk around as it's the first time either of us had been in a small Italian regional town. And it properly lived up to all the clichés. There's a much altered early medieval castle in the middle of town, plenty of old buildings with arcaded fronts, and lots of colours.

The Town Hall. Deep arcades, and an Amnesty International banner. Rubiera has had a reputation for being a humanitarian town since before WW2.

Colourful stucco and a blue sky: the streets of Rubiera.

Shade is important on a hot day.

The remnants of the castle, right on the market square in the middle of town.

I knew nothing about Rubiera before we arrived, because I was treating it as just a stop along the way to Florence. Now I look at the photos and wish we'd had more time and a bit more focus.

Maybe next time.

Fête St Georges 2024

There was no blog post on Wednesday - an oversight, because I had written one. This one:

Last Saturday was the fete St George. St George is the Patron Saint of Preuilly (and a fair percentage of other places, as well) and there has been a fete to celebrate him for many years. There have been occasions in the past when the fete wasn't held (recently because of the plague) and occasionally in previous centuries the town was chided by the authorities for not holding the fete and its associated cattle market.

These days there is no cattle market, although apparently some older residents of town remember it and rue its passing. All the local associations hold stands for renewing memberships, there are brocante style stalls, and various comestibles are available.

When we first arrived in town there were also rides and a lot of professional stalls, none of which have made it back after the dark years of Covid. This year the fete was a lot busier than the past three years so hopefully it will continue to grow.

ANZAC Biscuits

ANZAC biscuits are so named because of their association with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) from the First World War. They must contain rolled oats, sugar, butter and Golden Syrup. Usually they have dessicated coconut too. It is widely believed that Australian wives, mothers and women's groups sent the biscuits to troops fighting abroad in Europe and the Middle East because they were robust and didn't spoil on the long sea voyage to deliver them.

ANZAC is a protected term and manufacturers wishing to produce and sell these biscuits must apply to the Australian Department of Veterans Affairs. Commercially produced biscuits must adhere to the official recipe too (the only exceptions are substitutions to cater for dietary restrictions). Manufacturers must use the term 'biscuit' and not 'cookies'.

Versions of the ANZAC biscuit no doubt existed long before the First World War, but the first recipes using that name started appearing during the War, and in the decade immediately following. The first published recipes for a biscuit that is identical to the ANZAC biscuit we know and love today appeared in the 1920s.

Today they are a popular fundraiser for the Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL) and collectors buy them for the limited edition decorative tins they are packaged in. 

Ingredients
1 cup plain flour
1 cup caster sugar
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup dessicated coconut
125g butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp boiling water
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C and line oven trays with baking paper or a silicone sheet.
2. Combine flour, sugar, rolled oats and coconut.
3. Melt butter and golden syrup.
4. Add bicarb to boiling water and mix into butter mixture.
5. Stir into the dry ingredients.
6. Form the dough into large marble sized balls and drop onto trays, allowing generous room for spreading.
7. Bake for 10 minutes until light golden brown.
8. Cool on tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

Makes 25 biscuits. 

And in case you didn't know, today is ANZAC Day in Australia, a public holiday when Australian veterans are commemorated. Much like France on Armistice Day (11 November) there will be ceremonies at war memorials in towns big and small all over the country.

I baked ANZAC biscuits a couple of months ago for our Ukrainian Christmas event. I was pleased to see that they all went and people were keen to try them. No one had heard of them and I was intrigued that several people referred to them as 'macarons'.

Normal Service is Resumed

We did our first day of work with Claudette on Sunday. It was cold but clear, and Claudette responded beautifully, even if she never really warmed up. Here are some pics.

Tours at 08:30

Parked at Azay le Rideau

Wisteria

The gardens at Villandry

Merrill and Verena with Claudette at the end of the day