Marrons Glaces

These artisanal candied chestnuts from Provence available in my local supermarket work out at €1.52 each. There are 10 in a box. Definitely just an occasional Christmas treat.

 

Glacé chestnuts (Fr. marrons glacés) are one of the culinary extravagances of Christmas time, and beloved by French people. They are more or less impossible to make at home, and quite expensive to buy. Their texture is very distinctive and they are rarely eaten outside of the winter holiday period.

 

If I buy them it will be in this cheaper version, which is pieces of candied chestnut, not whole ones.

 

What the Lavender Fields of Provence Really Look Like

When he was planning our holiday to the south of France earlier this year Simon asked me if I wanted to see the famous lavender fields in Provence. It would mean a detour of a couple of hours but we would be there at the perfect time of year (late June) and I said 'yes please!'.

 

Lavandin.

They are beautiful, but Simon found all the cars crawling along narrow country roads as the occupants oohed and aahhed at the view very annoying. And he found the sight of tourists parked up on the side of the road and merrily cavorting (ahem...trespassing...) amongst the rows of lavender to take photos intolerable. 

 

Lavandin in the valley.

So I don't have any Instagram worthy photos of the lavender. I have a lot of photos taken from a slow moving vehicle. It would have been nice to stop and visit one of the farms, because they do a lot more than just lavender, but Simon wasn't in the mood. It doesn't help that he hates the smell of lavender anyway.

Looking down in to the valley from the plateau. You can see fields of lavandin down below.

We didn't bother looking for the stone cabin or the 'heart-shaped' tree in the middle of the lavender fields. No point. Why take a photo that has been plagiarised hundreds of times? And in any case, crop rotation means that these fields quite likely don't have lavender in this year. 

 

Curry plant.

The area we drove through was the Valensole plateau, regarded as the very best place to see fields of lavender. As well as lavender you may also see almond trees, bee hives, rosemary, clary sage, thyme, everlasting, saffron and olive trees. There could also be a few goats, and crops of soft wheat, chick peas and lentils. The farms here are remarkably diversified. Lavender isn't necessarily the main crop on each farm either. Terraroma, for example, is the largest almond producer in France, with 20 000 trees producing top quality nuts which are much prized by confectioners (Fr. confiseurs). The sweet almonds are grafted onto bitter almond stock, and some of the trees are 200 years old.

 

Curry plant.

The plateau of Valensole is about 600 metres above sea level. The lavender flowering season is short -- mid-June to mid-July.

 

Tourists by a lavender field.

There are many species and varieties of lavender, the best known being Lavendula angustifolia. This lavender is a perennial plant, that grows at altitudes of between 500 and 1500 meters; it can be ingested, is widely used in perfumery and has medicinal properties (healing, disinfectant, soothing, etc.).

 

Clary sage.

But not all of the lavender crop is L. angustifolia. Some of it is Lavandin, which is Lavendula x intermedia, a hybrid of L. angustifolia and L. latifolia with a stronger, slightly camphorated fragrance that produces more essential oil per kilo of flowers. It can be grown at lower altitudes and is often found in the valleys. 

Organic almond orchard.

In English, L. angustifolia is known as English Lavender and is native to cool upland areas of the Mediterranean. L. latifolia is known as Portuguese Lavender and is native to hot lowland western Mediterranean habitats. In French L. angustifolia is known as "lavande", "vrai lavande" or "lavande fine". The hybrid is called "lavandin".

 

Lavender field on the plateau.

As well, three species of Everlasting (Fr. Immortelle), Helichrysum sp or curry plant are grown for their oil which is used as an antibacterial. Two of the species, including H. stoechas, grow wild and are native to Provence, the other is native to Corsica. A hectare of flowers harvested will produce between 3 and 12 kilograms of essential oil, depending on the season. Once harvested it is distilled in small batches immediately. The plants are cultivated in the same way as the lavender.

 

Tourists blythely trespassing in a lavender field, with a sign asking them not to pick the flowers.

The other aromatic plant we saw being cultivated is Clary Sage Salvia sclarea (Fr. Sauge sclarée), once again native to the Mediterranean and its essential oil long used medicinally as an analgesic and anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial and anti-oxydant. It is also used in culinary preparations, in alcoholic drinks such as vermouths, and most importantly, luxury perfumes. Like the other plant essential oils it is made by distilling the steam from flowers and leaves. 

 

Organic lavender fields.

It is the third most commonly cultivated fragrance plant after lavender and lavandin in France, virtually all of it on the Valensole plateau. It needs calcareous soils that do not retain water and heat up quickly. It is never the main crop, but used as an important alternative crop as part of a farm's rotation. It is harvested at about the same time as the lavender. It is pollinated by carpenter bees Xylocopa species, unlike the lavender and lavandin, which are more attractive to honey bees Apis mellifera. Unlike in France, where production concentrates on the essential oil which is almost exclusively for luxury perfumes, in other parts of the world Clary Sage is cultivated primarily to extract sclareol and used to perfume detergents and soaps.

Many producers are organic, which means that many fields are not neat rows of bushes divided by rough ploughed bare earth. The organic fields, or those managed for maximum biodiversity, are full of 'weeds' (opportunistic wild plants). The 'weeds' help protect against random grazers, drought and erosion. A bare row loses the fine sand in the soil, which is the most fertile component. I wouldn't be surprised if the decision not to precision manicure the fields is at least partly taken in the hopes of discouraging the some of the Instagrammers too.

Climate change is becoming a challenge on the Valensole plateau, with colder, wetter springs impacting particularly on bee hives. More bees are surviving the milder winters, only to starve in the spring because of lack of nectar. 

Vignoble de Touraine-Noble-Joué

We had to go to Chambray-les-Tours a couple of weeks ago for an appointment at the Pôle Santé Léonard de Vinci. When I checked on OrganicMaps for the best access, I noticed Vignoble Municipal Noble Joué. Municipal??

 

Touraine-Noble-Joué Wine is a pale rosé wine, sometimes referred to as vin gris due to its silvery reflections, and is often drunk as an aperitif.

The roots of Touraine-Noble-Joué wine trace back to the Middle Ages, and it's reputed to have been a favorite of Louis XI. Its reputation waxed and waned, flourishing in the 18th century before facing challenges from the phylloxera epidemic in the 19th century. By the start of the 20th century it was regaining popularity, earning prestigious awards at the Universal Exhibition of 1900, but urbanisation meant that the vineyards gradually disappeared.

In 1975 a group of winemakers replanted vines, supported by the municipality of Joué-les-Tours. AOC status, which was originally applied for in 1939, was granted in 2001. The municipality maintains a vineyard, an idea so novel to us we had to investigate.

 

The vines are grown in clay-limestone soils at altitudes varying from 85m to 95m, in Chambray-lès-Tours, Esvres-sur Indre, Joué-lès-Tours, Larçay, and Saint-Avertin. Covering 28 hectares between the Cher and Loire rivers, Touraine-Noble-Joué relies predominantly on Pinot Meunier grapes, complemented by Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir varieties. About 210,000 bottles of wine are produced annually, by five producers.

Winter Walk

 

A poem by John Clare, with his usual very observant commentary on nature at work. A remarkable man.

The holly bush, a sober lump of green,
Shines through the leafless shrubs all brown and grey,
And smiles at winter be it e’er so keen
With all the leafy luxury of May.
And O it is delicious, when the day
In winter’s loaded garment keenly blows
And turns her back on sudden falling snows,
To go where gravel pathways creep between
Arches of evergreen that scarce let through
A single feather of the driving storm;
And in the bitterest day that ever blew
The walk will find some places still and warm
Where dead leaves rustle sweet and give alarm
To little birds that flirt and start away

John Clare (1793-1864)

My Biodiversity Records For 2023

iNaturalist, where I upload my biodiversity records, provides a handy end of year analysis of where one has been and what one saw, so here is the summary...

Roughly half my records have been verified by other naturalists, which means that they are 'Research Grade'. The other half are waiting for some competant person to see them and verify or suggest a better identification. It can take a couple of years for some of the trickier species, but the easy ones are usually verified within hours, and by half a dozen people.

The biggest group I entered was plants (42%) mostly orchids, followed by fungi (34%) mostly boletes. Insects made up 18% of my observations, mostly bees. The rest were a few molluscs, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. My busiest months were October, followed by May and April, so quite similar to the year before. 

The records that caused the most interest and discussion amongst other iNaturalist users were:

I photographed this male Great Banded Furrow Bee Halictus scabiosae (Fr. Halicte de la scabieuse) on the Loire sands near Noizay in September. Normally they would feed exclusively on field scabious, but it was very dry and their preferred flowers were in short supply, so here it was, feeding on water mint.

I photographed these Two-celled Mining Bees Andrena lagopus in passing in March, never imagining they could be identified to species level from this photo. But they have a unique wing venation pattern which meant that Polish bee expert Justyna Kierat identified them immediately. The wing venation and this species preference for feeding on canola meant that she could be certain about her identification.

Wild orchids naturally hybridising always cause a bit of discussion and this one is a Lady-Monkey Orchid hybrid Orchis x angusticruris, photographed in May on the Eperon de Murat, perhaps the most important nature reserve in Indre et Loire.

This bracket fungus, photographed in the Forest of Preuilly in November, caused discussion, because no one can figure out exactly what it is.

The sprig of Cypress Spurge Euphorbia cyparissias is normal, but the stem on the right is affected by Rust fungus Uromyces sp. It seems the rust is not advanced enough to be identified to species level and the discussion on iNaturalist this picture initiated was useful and interesting.

The Laundry Piles

A while ago Fabrice Doucet posted a photo of a mystery object on Facebook. He told everyone it was at the lavoir (former public laundry on the river, now our very popular guinguette) but asked if we knew what it was. Nobody did, so he supplied the very interesting answer, along with some extra images.

Image courtesy of Fabrice Doucet and the Departmental Archives of Indre et Loire.

The lavoir was constructed partially in the river, to provide the best access to the water. The posts supporting the roof were inserted into metal piles that screwed into the river bed, allowing a firm construction on the shifting and muddy ground. Each screw has a box at the top that a square oak post sits in. Nowadays the modern pontoon verandah terrace seating area of the guinguette obscures the piles to a large extent.

Image courtesy of Fabrice Doucet and the Departmental Archives of Indre et Loire.

The lavoir was a gift to the town by local benefactors Francois Chaumont and his wife Louise Patin, who also have one of the main streets in town named after them. The piles are still doing their job admirably, after 130 years. As Fabrice pointed out to me later, they are much the same age as the Eiffel Tower. 

Using Organic Maps

I wrote last week about the free app "Organic Maps" and said there would be a follow-up. This is it.

Once you've downloaded the app onto your device you'll need maps. All you need to do is zoom in on the area you're interested in. It will bring up the following:

Once the map is downloaded you can search the area, or zoom in to browse where you might like to go. If you know what you're looking for you tap on the magnifying glass icon (search) and type it into the search box, then select the result, or choose a category. In the following picture the categories screen is shown on the left, the search screen on the right.

Select your result, and the map will mark the place, and may even bring up a brief Wikipedia entry about it. If you want to bookmark it click on the star icon, and that location is saved.

If you want to plan a route, click on a place and tap "route from"  (or current location) and a destination "route to", and voila. This is a walk from car parking to the towers in Bologna.

You will notice it misses some of the other places I wanted to see. No worries, just tap on them and "add stop".

You can see I have a lot of saved places: places I've been to, places I want to go, and places I need for planning tours. They're organised into folders, and you can turn the folders on and off.

Unfortunately there is no way to save a route (I believe it's on its way) but you can import routes as .kml files from other apps.

One of the really useful search categories is Toilets. We use it when we're out and about, for instance in March when we were on our way to Amsterdam. The little blue dot shows a toilet we would have taken ages to find otherwise.

If you're looking for maps to use when travelling try this. There's no ads, so no danger you'll accidentally buy anything when mistakenly clicking where you didn't mean to. The maps are also updated every month.

Flamingoes in the Camargue

Top of my list to see when we stayed in Arles in June this year was to see flamingoes in the Camargue. 

The Camargue is France's largest wetland, formed by the delta of the Rhone river emptying into the Mediterranean. About 60,000 Greater Flamingoes call this briny land home.

In French they are called Flamants roses, and are one of 400 species of bird that can be observed in the Camargue (three-quarters of all the species recorded for France). The biggest colony in the western Mediterranean has nested on an island in the Camargue since the 1970s. The site used to be owned by the big salt producer the Compagnie des Salins du Midi but is now a big nature reserve. There are around 15,000 nesting pairs and visits to the site are strictly controlled so as not to disturb the birds. The tourist office has produced this handy guide: https://www.arlestourisme.com/fr/assets/pdf/pdfs_document/N9_circuit_flamants_roses_sel.pdf

The Greater Flamingo is the largest and most widely distributed flamingo species, being present in parts of Africa, Asia and southern Europe. There are only about 30 major breeding sites in the world. The global population is estimated at 500,000, and that in Europe at about 90,000.

They are a pale pink with only their wings having strong pink colour. Young flamingoes are grey until their second year. They eat tiny crustaceans which give them their pink colouring, but also molluscs, insects, algae, worms, fish (and their eggs) and seeds. They feed by sifting water through their beak, a bit like a baleine whale.

Flamingoes can easily live until they are 30 years old in the wild, and don't start to breed until they are three or four years old.

They are not difficult to spot if you are driving about in the Camargue. We got up early and saw our first ones flying over from their roosting grounds to their feeding grounds. By 9:30 in the morning we had dozens of photos of flamingoes, mainly from the side of the road at various points beside the Etang de Vaccares (the largest of the saline lagoons).

Chinese Pork

I like cooking, but the past couple of years I've often avoided the day to day French recipes in favour of Asian food. I think it's because I miss Asian food, and until fairly recently commercial kitchens around here didn't really do Asian food. They incorporate some Asian flavours into what are basically French dishes and call them curries. Anyway, I digress...

We're lucky here in that pork belly is readily available in any supermarket or butchers - just look for poitrine. This recipe uses about 750 grams of poitrine, and makes a very nice, very unctuous and sweet/spicy dish. It's not diet food, it's comfort food.

Ingredients:

Frying oil

750 grams pork poitrine

1 cm ginger root, finely sliced

1 star anise

1 tablespoon rice wine

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

4 tablespoons brown sugar 

5 tablespoons water

Method

Take your poitrine and cut it into 3cm cubes.

In a small bowl mix

1 tablespoon rice wine

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Preheat a wok until it starts to smoke slightly, then turn the heat to low. Add 2 tablespoons of oil (I use peanut oil) and the ginger slices. Fry the ginger for 1 minute. Add the pork, turn up the heat to high and brown the meat for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally.

Turn down the heat, and add your bowl of liquids, star anise and 4 tablespoons sugar (preferably brown).

 

Put 5 tablespoons of water into your mixing bowl, stir, then add that to your wok.

Turn up the heat again and once boiling, cover and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally and checking to make sure the liquid is not drying up. If it is, reduce the heat further and add a splash more water if needed.

After 25 minutes of simmering, remove the lid. There should be quite a bit of liquid left.

Turn up the heat to reduce the sauce and make it all shiny. With the heat on high, continuously stir and toss the meat - it only takes a couple of minutes. Reduce the liquid until there is ¼ cup of sauce left.

Serve immediately with rice.

I usually serve this with ¼ small cabbage, which I sprinkle with sesame oil and some chilli flakes, then steam for 5-10 minutes until soft, but still with some bite. This time around I served it with epinards.

 

The cooking photos are of a double batch.

Mapping on the Go

For the past eight years I have been using navigation and mapping based on Open Street Maps (OSM) rather than the better known G**gle Maps.

At first I used Maps.Me, but that organisation was sold to a marketing and finance company. That's when I deleted the Maps.Me app and went over to Organic Maps. Organic Maps was founded by the same team that started Maps.Me, but the new app features no location tracking, no data collection, and no ads. You simply download the maps for where you are, then it runs without a data connection.

EDIT: It's also totally free!

There is a very good reason for using a navigation and mapping app based on OSM. Many organisations (including public authorities) use the maps and provide details. In some cases, especially where local authorities are involved, very detailed details.

This is what a general overview of Paris looks like on OSM.

 

Zoom in towards Place des Vosges

and again

and now, really zoom in

You will see that just about everything is marked: trees, playgrounds, seating, litter bins (trash cans), drinking fountains and fire hydrants. Move the map and you would see post boxes, bollards, shops, hotels, footpaths, bike paths, museums, restaurants, pay parking machines, underpasses, tunnels... Just about everything.

And now... G**gle Maps. Because G**gle is all about profit you get shops and advertising, but only minimal tourist and geographical information.

This is what the same map looks like in Organic Maps.

In another blog post I have described how to use Organic Maps. Click here.