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!