Hobbit Houses

Ever since we moved to France we have driven to Tours via Manthelan, what we call "up the middle". Sometimes we return via the autoroute and Ste Maure, but we rarely if ever drive north that way.

On the outskirts of Chapelle Blanche St Martin is what we assume is a 1950s house (but could be 60s) with an apsidal wing and a conical stone chimney. This quickly became known as the "Hobbit House".

These are rubbish pics, they were taken from the taxi on a very dull day.

I usually drive, but being a passenger in a taxi for 35 days gave me an opportunity to look around and realise that there are a number of houses built to a similar plan in the area. We now know of 6 Hobbit Houses, but we know nothing about them. When -and why - were they a "thing"? Were they the work of one architect, or was it a fashion?

Finessing Your French

Most people, when they arrive in France, have enough French to negotiate shopping adequately enough. Je voudrais ('I would like') followed by reading the name of the item off the label and pointing will get you what you want most of the time. The trickiest bits of the transaction when you are a newbie are remembering to say bonjour before making your request and working out how much it is if you have bought multiple items and there isn't a cash register readout to take a sneaky peak at.

Fairly soon, especially if you live here, you realise that shopkeepers and market stallholders are asking you questions too. Usually these questions are easy to get the gist of because of the context, but what are they actually saying?

• avec ceci? -- literally 'with that?', meaning 'anything else?' The problem is it sounds like avec soucis?, which would mean 'with worries?' and doesn't make any sense at all. This one had me so bemused in the early days that I eventually asked a bilingual friend to explain.
• ce sera tout? -- literally 'that will be all?', meaning 'will that be all?' This one sounds like ça ce ratou, but 'ratou' isn't actually a French word, so it doesn't mean anything. It took me ages, but I did eventually figure this one out myself. It can also be used as your response when asked 'avec ceci?' -- 'non, ce sera tout, merci'.
• ça va aller? -- literally 'that's going to go?', meaning 'is that alright?' You hear it a lot, not just at the market, and it too can be either a question or a response depending on intonation. It usually sounds like ça va les, which I couldn't make mean anything particularly sensible, although I got very quickly that the phrase meant something similar to ça marche ('that works') when used as a statement. This one took me the longest to figure out, but it finally dawned on me, without having to ask anyone.

 And then there is the question of how to pronounce the names of the supermarkets. Here is my take on it:

• Auchan -- pronounced Oh-shuh, with the stress slightly on the second syllable. As an Anglophone you will really struggle not to give it a nasalised 'n' on the end, but try your best. It is not pronounced 'ocean', and doing so (not by me, thank goodness) has been known to make French people laugh.
• Carrefour -- pronounced Carr-foor, with a slight stress on the last syllable and a proper gargling French 'r' in the middle, but not too much 'r-ing' at the end. It is not pronounced 'carry four' or 'care for'.
• SuperU -- pronounced Su-pair-u, with fairly even stress on each syllable and the final 'u' pronounced so you are almost whistling. It is not pronounced 'super you'. The 'u' is a sound that doesn't exist in English and you will just have to listen to native speakers and practice it.
  
• Intermarché -- pronounced uhn-tair-mar-shay, with a slight stress on the last syllable. It is not pronounced 'intermarsh' or 'intermarshay'.
• LeClerc -- pronounced luh-klair, with the stress on the second syllable. It is not pronounced 'lee-clerk'.

Note: This is a reworking of a post I wrote more than a decade ago. The main changes I've made are to incorporate some points made on the original post by linguist Ken Broadhurst regarding how one could express in non-technical writing the pronunciation of the supermarket names.

Silures, Slugs and Silex

On Friday 7 November I went out with the Galoches Bruno, Alain and Martine to walk 5 or so kilometres around Yzeures sur Creuse. Once again it was remarkably warm, at about 18°C.

 

We always have a few roses flowering, even into December.

A garden wall made of flint (Fr. silex).

The Lombardy poplar we were walking towards was full of roosting starlings.

Spanish Slug Arion vulgaris (Fr. Loche méridionale).

One of the Cavalier mushroom species Melanoleuca sp. I think it's probably the Common Cavalier M. polioleuca, but it might be one of the rarer species. They are very difficult to accurately identify.

A new fitness station, near the swimming pool.

The remains of the public laundry (Fr. lavoir) on the River Creuse. The stones, shaped like an oversized kerb because of their washing slope, would have been at water level. The river has dropped because a weir downstream has been removed.

The grey cygnet on the right is the only survivor from a brood of six this year. The Wels Catfish (Fr. Silure) has got all the rest.

A Walk in the Forest, Part II

On 30 October Ingrid and I went for a wander in the Forêt de Preuilly. We only covered a couple of kilometres but we saw lots of things and got some nice photos. It should have been peak mushroom season, but even after a bit of rain, there were relatively few species, and nothing in abundance. 

 

Hedgehog Mushroom Hydnum repandrum (Fr. Pied de mouton), showing the 'spines' underneath the cap. This one, and its nearby friends, came home with me and I ate them.

Hedgehog Mushrooms.

Beech Woodwart Hypoxylon fragiforme (Fr. Hypoxylon en forme de fraise), which, as the name suggests, is found on Beech, almost exclusively.

Turkey-tail Trametes versicolor (Fr. polypore versicolore), an often colourful, and very variable bracket fungus that is everywhere in the forest.

Brittlegill Russula sp (Fr. Russule), one of the wine coloured (Fr. vineuse) species that are very difficult to identify. As a group they are abundant in the forest, and related to the usually equally abundant orange Milkcaps Lactarius spp.

Felted Twiglet mushrooms Tubaria conspersa (Fr. Tubaire voilée) is an abundant little ochre coloured mushroom which grows on brash and other forest floor debris. The gills are beige and the surface of the cap and stem covered in fine white scales. It's a mushroom you can see at any time of year.

Dog Stinkhorn Mutinus caninus (Fr. Phallus de chien) are rather thin compared to other stinkhorns, and their caps are not separate, but part of the stipe (stem). They 'hatch' out of a white 'egg' and when young the orange tip is covered with an olive green sticky gleba, smelling of tobacco and over ripe fruit.

Hairy Leg Bell mushrooms Galerina vittiformis (Fr. Galère rougeâtre) or one of its close relatives, another little ochre coloured mushroom, commonly found poking up from the forest floor moss. It is one of a number of species which bioaccumulates heavy metals from contaminated ground.

Devilsbit Scabious Succisa pratensis (Fr. Succise des près) found throughout France, in damp woods and meadows.

Soapy Knight mushroom Tricholoma saponaceum (Fr. Tricholome à odeur de savon), which smells of soap when young, then later of iodine.

Magpie Ink Cap Coprinopsis picacea (Fr. Coprin pie) is found in open deciduous wooded habitat, often appearing in the grass of forest rides. It is an easy and unmistakeable mushroom to identify.

World War I Hospital Blankets

For the whole of World War I the Chateau of Chenonceau was a military hospital, set up, funded and run by the chocolate manufacturing Menier family. On the centenary of the start of the War they got a selection of hospital furniture and ephemera out of storage and recreated a small hospital ward.

On the beds are military blankets marked with the initials SSM in one corner and GF in the opposite corner. A quick internet search revealed that SSM stands for Service de Santé Militaire (Military Health Service). It seems that GF stands for Garde Frontier.

In the original hospital there were 120 beds, one of the first x-ray machines and a modern operating theatre. Most of the 2254 soldiers and airmen treated over the course of the War were very severely wounded.

Tarte Tatin

At this time of year I'm always looking for apple recipes and in France what could be better than the classic Tarte Tatin?

One of my tarts as it emerged from the oven.

I like to make two tarts at once because our oven is double width. Often I'll do them rectangular rather than the usual round version. 

 
There seems to be no question that the Tatin sisters created the recipe in the 1880s and it became the signature dish of their hotel in Lamotte-Beuvron in the Sologne (the area between Blois and Orléans). They called the dessert Tarte Solognote. It seems to have been the famous Parisien restaurant Maxim's who dubbed it Tarte Tatin in the 1930s.

 One of my tarts flipped for cutting and serving.

The original version seems to have been made in a cast iron Dutch oven, in the same way as one makes damper, by putting the pot in the coals and covering the deep sided lid with coals too. The sisters used the still popular old Tourangelle apple variety Reine des Reinettes and the apples were not peeled. The tart is traditionally served warm, unaccompanied by custard, cream or ice cream. The original recipe contains no spices or anything other than apples, flour, butter and sugar.

Reine de reinette apple.

Traditionally the tart is an upside down shortcake, which is made by putting a layer of apple chunks on the base of a dish with plenty of butter and sugar to form caramel. Then a simple pastry is laid over the top, the ensemble baked then turned out so that the caramelly apple layer is uppermost for serving. To be honest, if you are nervous about turning the hot tart, there is no real need to do so. Just cut and flip each portion as you place it in the serving bowls, or leave with the pastry on top. It will taste the same either way.

Ingredients

 

Pastry

3 cups flour

4 tbsp raw sugar

1 tsp sea salt

240 g butter

2 egg yolks

 

Apples

150 g butter

150 g raw sugar

½ tsp sea salt

8 apples

 

Method

1. For the pastry, combine flour, sugar and salt. 
2. Add the butter and egg yolks and rub them into the flour until you get crumbs.
3. Add 4 tablespoons of cold water and knead into a ball.
4. Cover the dough and refrigerate for a minimum of an hour or even overnight.
5. For the caramel, heat the butter and sugar in a small saucepan. Swirl but don't stir until it smells  unmistakeably of caramel.
   
6. Pour the caramel into two 25 cm round cake tins and spread it across the base.
7. Sprinkle the caramel with salt.
8. Heat the oven to 190°C.
9. Peel, core and cut the apples into eighths.
10. Arrange the apples decoratively in the cake tins, with their core sides uppermost and outer curved side placed in the caramel.
11. Halve the dough and roll out into two 30 cm diameter rounds.
12. Place the dough over the apples, tucking it in to fit and patching any tears, then poke three vent holes in it.
13. Bake for 50-60 minutes.
14. Remove from the oven and stand on a rack.
15. Cool for 10 minutes then run a knife around the edge.
16. Place a plate on top and tip each tart out to reveal the caramelised apples sitting on a short pastry base.
17. Serve warm or at room temperature. Each tart serves 8.
     

A Walk in the Forest, Part I

On 30 October Ingrid and I went for a wander in the Forêt de Preuilly. We only covered a couple of kilometres but we saw lots of things and got some nice photos. It should have been peak mushroom season, but even after a bit of rain, there were relatively few species, and nothing in abundance. 

 

Spanish Slug Arion vulgaris (Fr. loche méridionale), a species that varies a lot in colour, from dark brown to bright orange. Its English name is a result of confusion over the origin and identity of this species. Genetic studies show that the 'Spanish' Slug is very rare in Spain, but is native to north-west Europe (primarily France, Germany, Benelux).

Dusky Slugs Arion subfuscus (Fr. loche roussâtre), a fairly abundant species throughout France. This photo shows how the juveniles are more strongly marked. Apparently the slime this species produces was the inspiration a few years ago for a new biomedical glue that adheres to both wet and dry surfaces.

I assume this contraption is some sort of game feeding device. It was a sturdy tripod with a car battery on top, a motor attached to a plate that could spin underneath a suspended plastic container. If anyone knows for sure what this is, please let me know.

Common Greenshield lichen Flavoparmelia caperata (Fr. Parmélie froncée) is found on deciduous tree bark growing in wrinkled rosettes. The large lobes are not attached to the substrate, but loose and lift up a bit at the edges. It is present throughout France except at very high altitude.

Variable Oysterling Crepidotus variabilis (Fr. Crépidote variable) is a charming little mushroom which I find often in the forest on brash and small fallen branches.

This must be a tiny parasitic fungus. It's growing on a very degraded specimen of a gilled mushroom (so old it was unidentifiable, but it might have been honey fungus). I haven't been able to identify the tiny white mushrooms.

Turkey-tail Trametes versicolor (Fr. Polypore versicolore) is one of the most abundant fungi in the forest, found on many fallen branches and stumps. The top surface is in concentric bands of colours ranging from white to grey, black, red and beige. Underneath it is pure white with tiny pores, which yellows a bit with age.

Agile Frog Rana dalmatina (Fr. Grenouille agile) is a commonly encountered amphibian in the forest and easy to identify as unlike green frogs they do not vary much in pattern and coloration. Its distribution stretches from Sweden in the north, the Spanish Basque country in the south-west and Ukraine in the south-east.

Black Trumpets Craterellus cornucopioides (Fr. Trompettes de la mort) are a much sought after edible mushroom in these parts. I did indeed pick these and eat them. They are not easy to spot in the leaf litter.

Sulphur Knight Tricholoma sulphureum (Fr. Tricholome soufré) is a frequently encountered mushroom under the deciduous trees in the Forêt de Preuilly. This is definitely not an edible mushroom. It's rotten egg stinky and will give you gastro-intestinal pains.

False Death Cap Amanita citrina (Fr. Amanite citrine), not terribly toxic but can be confused with some deadly species. The American Destroying Angel A. amerivirosa is apparently now abundant in the forests of Poitou, to our south-west, and the two species look remarkably similar to me. I imagine eventually the introduced species will turn up in the Touraine.

A More Interesting Diet

It's now over a week since my radiotherapy finished, and at last I'm eating stuff that looks like proper food. Some of it is even a little spicy.

Baked potato, sausage, and deconstructed spanakopita

Gyoza, with soy sauce and plum sauce

Tex-Mex turkey bake with mesclun

The baked potato meal was the first of these, and my stomach did rebel, but since then I think we're almost back to normal.

Walking Around Yzeures sur Creuse

On Friday 31 October I joined les Galoches walking club for 6.5 kilometres around Yzeures sur Creuse. It was rather warm for the season, at 18°C.

 

I think this is Conical Brittlestem Parasola conopilea (Fr. Psathyrelle conique), growing in the leaf litter on the 'balcons' (terraces) of the River Creuse.

A rather fancy pantry I think.

Barns in a hamlet on the outskirts of the village.

A newly planted parcel of vines.

Spangle galls on an oak leaf, caused by the tiny wasp Neuroterus quercusbaccarum (Fr. Cynips galle-lentille).

Dozens of spangle galls that have slipped off their leaves once they've fallen. You could easily mistake them for spilled lentils on the track. There were several patches of galls on the ground like this, so it seems that mast years don't just apply to nuts and acorns.

House.

Sloe Bug Dorycoris baccarum (Fr. Punaise des baies).

Sloe Bug. You can see in this photo why their other name in English is Hairy Shield Bug.