Touraine Asparagus

Steamed green asparagus.

At the end of April and the beginning of May, asparagus is the flagship product on people's plates at home and in restaurants. This year, because of the weather, producers are expecting a bumper crop.

Locally produced white asparagus at the market.

The epitome of seasonal produce, asparagus features on the shelves between April and June. In Indre et Loire one finds Touraine asparagus, especially grown around Bourgueil and Richelieu. The label 'Coeur de Touraine' is the most prized, only held by 17 producers around Richelieu, who produce between 200 and 250 tonnes per annum, depending on the year, with 90% white asparagus and the rest green.

Locally produced green asparagus at the market.

Did you know that whether white, green or purple it is all the same plant? The colour depends on the method of cultivation. White asparagus grows underground, with out seeing the sun's rays. Purple asparagus is the same variety as the white, but the tip emerges from the soil to see the sun, which gives it the purple colour. Finally, the green grows entirely in the fresh air. 

White asparagus from Braslou, near Richelieu.

Personally I never buy asparagus from the supermarket, always from a local producer who I can trust to have cut the stems no more than 24 hours before bringing his asparagus to market. According to my asparagus producer of preference, asparagus in the supermarket has been cut about three weeks before it hits the shelves, due to how the supermarket supply chains work. This means it has lost moisture and its sugars have converted to starches, meaning it is a less tasty, tougher vegetable.

Monster Molluscs You Could See in the Touraine Loire Valley

The Touraine Loire Valley is home to some impressively large land snails and slugs.

This Yellow Cellar Slug Limacus flavus (Fr. Limace des caves) and its family live in our kitchen. They are nocturnal, so we rarely see them. For scale, the tiles are 20 cm².

I encounter Ash-black Slugs Limax cinereoniger (Fr. Grande limace) in the larger well established forests. They can be pale and stripey like this one...

 ...or they can be charcoal grey with a pale grey dorsal ridge.

Red Slugs Arion rufus (Fr. Grande loche) can be encountered anywhere -- in the forest, on waste ground, in gardens and often on roads, paths and tracks.

The famous edible Roman/Burgundian Snail Helix pomatia (Fr. Escargot de Bourgogne) occurs in isolated small populations on sites that don't get much human disturbance or are managed with a light touch. They like semi-natural parks or woodland edges. A significant number are white...

 

...but most are brown.

A Turkish Snail Helix lucorum (Fr. Escargot turc) with a friend's hand for scale. Under the hand is a Glow-worm Lampyria noctiluca (Fr. Lampyre) larva. They prey on snails by injecting them with toxin then waiting for them to die, so this snail may already be doomed.

Saving Swifts in the Touraine Loire Valley

In September last year the church of Saint Ours got struck by lightning and the east belltower was damaged. Since then it has been swathed in a maze of scaffolding and the town authorities, who own the building, are getting ready to repair it. The project will cost a quarter of a million euros, which is half the town's annual heritage buildings conservation budget.

Some years ago I had alerted the local swift conservation association SOS Martinets that there was a swift colony that nested in the roof and crevices in the walls of the church. So naturally they were very concerned when scaffolding went up, and arranged a meeting with the Technical Services Manager for the town. They invited me along and we presented the case for swift conservation.

Although he admitted he didn't know the difference between a swift and a swallow (fairly normal for the general public unfortunately) he was open to what we had to say. Fortunately the scaffolding isn't going to block the flight path or entry to any of the known nests. However, it was worth showing Frédéric Lardy well constructed nest boxes and alternatives for partially blocking niches to allow swift entry.

 

Frédéric Lardy, Technical Services Manager for the town Loches on the left, Carolyn and Tim Knowlman from SOS Martinet on the right.

We pointed out that if nest boxes go up they must be with the entry slot low down on the front, not at the top, as swifts have small weak legs and tend to plummet to the bottom of the nest box if forced to enter from the top. We also showed several methods of blocking up boulins (old wooden scaffolding holes) so that pigeons cannot use them as nest holes, but swifts can enter via a narrow slit and can nest in safety behind a piece of stone or slate. The result is aesthetically acceptable, in keeping with the building, and easy for the masons to install. We have had several sad instances where masons unknowingly have completely blocked and filled nest holes when buildings have been restored. Not only is this a disaster for breeding swifts, but they share the holes with lizards and insects, who are also put at risk when the holes are blocked.

Monsieur Lardy informed us that the municipal authorities are keen to add swift conservation to their list of responsibilities, and keen to let the public know they are doing so by putting something on the town website. Tim and Carolyn, my friends from SOS Martinets, are going to work on some text and provide photos. They also gave Monsieur Lardy some technical documents to help with ordering the construction and placement of a few temporary nestboxes on the scaffold. We don't expect the swifts to use the nests in this case but they serve to help raise awareness of their presence and importance.

 

Swifts flying around a nest site in Loches (photo from our archive).

The swifts are migratory and will arrive from Africa in May to breed in the Touraine Loire Valley, and they will leave again in August. They come back year after year to the same nest. There are several species, but in the Touraine we only get the so-called 'Common' Swift Apus apus (Fr. Martinet noir). Their population has plummeted in recent years by at least 50% but Switzerland, Italy and Spain have been doing great conservation work. I can tell you from personal experience that watching the swifts gregariously wheeling and making their distinctive screaming whistle aerial call whilst enjoying an aperitif on a summer evening in Florence or Granada will be one of the highlights of your visit to these cities. We hope Loches can be similar.

Further reading: SOS Martinets.

Fairy Longhorn Moths in the Touraine Loire Valley

If you see a tiny insect with unfeasibly long antennae in spring and summer it is likely to be a fairy longhorn moth. They may be tiny, but people notice them because they are so striking, and every year one or two people ask me what they are if we see them on a walk or an outing. It seems many people think they are flies as I have several times in the past been asked to identify 'these flies', even by experienced naturalists. The one in the photo is a female. The males have antennae that are half as long again.

Female Green Fairy Longhorn Moth Adela reaumurella (Fr. Adèle verdoyante).

They often congregate in large numbers, with males flying around trees in the sun, and sitting waving their antennae back and forth.

A Normandy Invasion Survivor

Several years ago we had the opportunity at Chateauroux to see and get on board the last French DC3 that is still airworthy. Like 70 others of its kind at the time in the mid-20th century, this plane crisscrossed the skies, wearing the livery of Air France.

 

The Douglas DC-3 (Dakota) that took part in the Normandy invasion, then saw service with Air France.

It was built in 1943 and participated in the Normandy Invasion of June 1944. Its job was to tow gliders and carry parachutists. Then in August 1944 it was down south, for the Allied landings in Provence. After the War and with Germany partitioned, it was one of the planes in the famous Berlin airlift (in French the name for this operation translates as the 'aerial bridge'.) Afterwards it carried celebrities and government officials, including President de Gaulle, and future President Mitterand, when he was a Minister of State.

 

  The plane has both a perspex dome (for celestial navigation using a sextant) and modern GPS based navigation.

Air France retired the plane in the 1970s and it became the Central African Republic President Bokassa's private plane, before being refitted as a cargo plane. Today it is a sort of flying historic monument, sponsored by Air France, making appearances at airshows around the country and legendary amongst aviation enthusiasts.

I've no doubt, as a Normandy Invasion survivor, this plane will be extra busy this year of the 80th anniversary of the famous Allied landings that signalled the beginning of the end of the Second World War in Europe. So if you are up in Normandy, do keep an eye out for it, and if you are as lucky as we were, you might even get the chance to hop onboard and get a feel for what it was like to fly.

 

Roscoff Onions

Finistere is in the north-west of France, part of Brittany, and around the small port of Roscoff in Finistere they grow onions. The 'oignon de Roscoff' (Roscoff onion) has the French/European geographical protection certificate AOC, meaning to be marketed as the famous Roscoff onion the onions must have been produced in a certain limited geographical area around Roscoff.

The story goes that a monk who had spent time in Portugal brought the distinctive sweet pink onions back with him in the 17th century. He taught the nuns at the Convent of Roscoff how to cultivate them.

Later Roscoff's proximity to the United Kingdom led to cargoes of onions being sent off in the summer with teams of men who would walk the length and breadth of the United Kingdom selling their onions door to door. They became iconic and a sort of stereotype of what a Frenchman looked like for many British. They were nicknamed 'Onion Johnnies', a somewhat patronising name that they themselves ultimately adopted and owned.

The Johnnies rode bicycles and carried the onions in strings around their necks. The name 'Onion Johnny' may be a bit patronising, but in fact the onions were much appreciated by the British housewives and cooks of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. And the French producers knew their product was superior to the onions the British could grow, and were proud of them.

At the peak of this trade, in the interwar period, there may have been as many as 2000 Onion Johnnies.

Roscoff onions are a medium sized onion, characterised by their copper pink skins.

It's Been a Year

In all the excitement of our salon and bedroom being insulated we've almost forgotten that today is the anniversary of our double glazing being installed.

The new windows made a much bigger difference than we had expected - evidence, I think, of how bad the old windows were. The reduction of noise inside the house, lack of rattles, and absence of drafts has been really noticeable. We're too far past winter for the insulation to really show its effects, but we're hoping that this coming summer the house will remain comfortable for longer 'if' we have a heatwave.

The house still isn't completely in order after the insulation project. We're still debating curtains and placement of furniture, but we are slowly progressing.

Three Butterflies You Could See in Spring in the Loire Valley

If the weather is sunny we could start seeing butterflies on the wing in February, but for any real variety you really have to wait until mid-April. Here is a selection of three rather lovely ones that you could see in your garden if it is not too manicured, and on walks that include habitat with bushes and brambles, or ditches and damp grassland.

Brimstone Gonepteryx rhamni (Fr. le Citron) - with wings shaped to look like leaves, males are lemon yellow, and females are pale yellow. They have an orange spot on each wing on their upperside and a pinky brown spot on the undersides, with carmine pink antennae. If they are threatened they can fall into a cataleptic state and appear to be dead. They hibernate as adult butterflies over winter, hidden in ivy or holly foliage. The caterpillars eat Buckthorn.

 

Orange Tip Anthocharis cardamines (Fr. l'Aurore) - males have orange tips to their forewings, females do not. This species overwinters as a chrysalis and can emerge as early as March. The caterpillars eat Brassicas, notably Garlic Mustard and Lady's Smock, but lots of others too.

Green Hairstreak Callophrys rubi (Fr. Thecle de la ronce) -  males and females are almost identical, with green undersides and brown uppersides. They overwinter as chrysalises and can emerge as early as March. The caterpillars eat Birch, Brambles and many other plants.

Wet Feet

I mentioned on Monday that it had been damp.

What I didn't say is that a number of our friends had been affected by the flooding on Sunday night. Jim and Pauline (who live many metres above the river in la Guerche) ended up with water in their basement, but Dennis and Angela topped that with about 20cm of water in the house, and having to be rescued by a boat full of Pompiers. Dennis was last seen on the blog teaching me to do pierres apparentes.

This video (in French) shows the extent of the flooding, and at about 1:10 you can see Dennis and Angela being bought to dry land in the rescue boat.

We went over on Monday morning to see if we could help, but Jim and Pauline had beaten us to it, and the mopping out was already finished. To raise morale we had taken brooms, buckets, and a pile of raspberry slices.

The water has receded remarkably quickly, no doubt helped by the fact that there are now no barriers on the rivers between here and the sea.

Agnes Stays Put

There is currently a big temporary exhibition on Art in the Time of Charles VII at the Cluny Museum of Medieval Art in Paris. The star piece was to have been the alabaster tomb effigy (Fr. gisant) of Agnes Sorel, 15th century mistress of Charles VII. Her permanent home is the church of Saint Ours in Loches and she has never been lent before. As it turns out, neither is she this time, despite everyone's best intentions.

The statue was commissioned by Charles VII in 1450 when his beloved Agnes died suddenly at the age of 28. Forensic investigations of her remains in 2004 revealed that the cause of death was undoubtedly mercury poisoning, but whether it was accidental or deliberate murder is impossible to say for sure. 

On 19 February a group of specialist art transporters arrived to pack her up and take her to Paris. The effigy alone weighs a bit over 200 kg, quite apart from the black marble slab she lays on, and the conservator assigned to oversee the job was nervous, just because of the prestige of the sculpture.

Despite all possible care being taken, an old crack started to open up as the team began to manipulate the sculpture and lifting it by just a few millimetres. Like many tomb monuments of this type, the effigy was badly damaged in 1793 during the Revolution. She lost her hands, a prayerbook she had been holding and reading, the canopy over her head, and the sculpture was shattered into several pieces. She was put back together in the 19th century and new hands added (now meeting in pious prayer and without the book). The break at her waist was repaired and during a conservation restoration in 2015 remained stable. But the museum and heritage professionals present were shocked to see how much it started to open up during the recent activity. The effigy was clearly much more fragile than they had expected.

Several solutions were tried, including inflatable supports, but moving her was finally deemed too risky. The preparations and loan negotiations for the exhibition had been going on for a year prior to this, so it was a hard decision to have to make.

The Loches town council were hoping that the focus on Agnes would lead to good publicity with the potential for a higher profile for this lovely rural town that is just a bit too far off the current Loire Valley tourist trail.

The exhibition at the Cluny runs from 12 March to 16 June. But if you want to see Agnes you will have to come to Loches. The Cluny's reaction to this blow was extremely gracious and professional. They understand the objects in loan arrangements like this can never be put at risk, and as the borrower, they had the legal and financial burden of responsibility for the operation. But it means a frantic last minute rearrangement of the exhibition for them, and because of the short time frame, no other image of Agnes Sorel will be on display. There will however be illuminated manuscripts, paintings, sculptures, goldsmithing work, stained glass, and tapestries to flesh out this often overlooked period. The exhibition hopes to show how the innovative Flemish style blended in France with the Italian awareness of their antiquities, creating a distinctive aesthetic ideal, particularly in the Loire Valley with the influential presence of Jean Fouquet.

I have to say that I am rather relieved. She is a major part of my presentation of the Royal Citadel when I do tours of Loches and to have had to say to clients that the star attraction was away on loan for the whole spring would have been a bit disappointing.

For now, the crack in Agnes's side is very visible, but a conservator will be commissioned to make an aesthetic repair.

Look Out for Grey-backed Mining Bees in the Touraine Loire Valley

 

Grey-backed Mining Bees Andrena vaga are clothed in a grey fur coat and are visible from March to May in sandy places (like the island in the Loire at Amboise). Males have a rather impressive white moustache, but are a bit smaller than the females, which you will sometimes see partly covered by bright yellow willow pollen. The species is not aggressive and is completely harmless. Each of them live in their own little hole in the ground, but around them there will be dozens, if not hundreds of others.

They are solitary bees, specialising in feeding on willow catkins. They live for a year, but as adults, just a few weeks.

If you see a pale grey furred bee, about 11-15 mm long, with a shiny black abdomen, in a sandy place or on willow catkins, it will be this species. If you see a little conical pile of sand with a hole in the middle it is most likely a bee's nest. They like sunny semi-open sites, where they can rapidly warm up in the morning sun. If you find one nest there will undoubtedly be others as they nest in large colonies, although each hole belongs to a single individual female. They only travel about 250 metres to forage, so there will always be willow close by to the nest colony.

When the sun is warm enough in the spring the bees down in their holes in the sand will awake from their hibernation. The males will emerge a few days earlier than the females. They position themselves at the entrance to a nest hole and wait for a female. The females on the other hand, only have one thing on their mind when they emerge -- gathering pollen. Sometimes males are so keen to mate that multiple males form a mating ball around a single female.

The females dig a nest hole to a depth of about 25 to 60 centimetres underground. The tunnel goes straight down, with a dozen side branches, which end in brood cells. In each of these chambers the bee will deposit willow pollen mixed with nectar and formed into a ball. Then she will lay an egg into each ball. After about six weeks of reproductive activity, the adult female will die. When the larvae hatch they have enough food to survive until they enclose themselves in a cocoon later in the spring. By the end of summer the cocoon will house an adult bee, but it will not emerge until the following spring.
 

These bees are completely harmless to humans and domestic animals. They are not aggressive because they don't have to fight to defend themselves against nest invaders (instead they make fake nest holes to fool the Lathbury's Nomad Bees Nomada lathburiana which parasitise them). If you want to give them a helping hand by all means put a pile of sand (ideally at least 30 cm deep, and quite compacted) in a sunny spot in your garden and plant some willow. 

 

Three key facts about Mining Bees that you can impress your friends with:

• they don't make honey;
• they only live a few weeks as adults -- just long enough to ensure that her descendants have the best possible chance of survival;
  
• they are parasitised by a so-called 'cuckoo bee', Lathbury's Nomad Bee, which lay their eggs in the reproduction chambers. The larvae of these cuckoo bees hatch early and eat the mining bee egg and the pollen.

Damp Underfoot

We've know it to be wetter, but we've never been known to receive an emergency flood warning on a bright and sunny day. The warning popped up on Saturday lunchtime, so we went to have a look at the Claise.

To be honest, it wasn't looking as flooded as May 2016, but there were signs that someone had received a lot of rain. The river was flowing as quickly as we have ever seen it, and parts of the guinguette were knee deep in water.

The rivers were even higher yesterday, with a lot of road closures and flooded homes. We didn't go out in the car taking photos: getting in the way of rescues services and the possibility of getting into trouble ourselves isn't really socially acceptable. Having said that, walking down to look at the guinguette wasn't going to cause any problems.

A Wall of Thanks

Well...

We've been home a number of days, and we're gradually getting organised. In the meantime we'd like to give massive thanks to the following people:

Nick, Gael, Franck, Huub, Ingrid, Tim, Gaynor, Stan, Anna, Lesia, Vitalina, Natalyia, Ernie, Dennis, and Angela.

And especially Lisa and Simon, whose generous loan of a home for almost seven weeks made the whole thing a lot more comfortable and warm.

Surprise Stone Axe

This is a copy of a painting by Jehan Fouquet, court painter to Charles VII in the 15th century. It hangs in the Logis Royal in Loches. It depicts Etienne Chevalier, Charles's right hand man, and his name saint, Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr. It is the left half of a diptych. The right half is the much better known Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels, for which Charles's mistress, Agnes Sorel, sat as the model. The work, in oil on wood panel, is known as the Melun Diptych and was commissioned by Etienne Chevalier for the church in his home town of Melun.

We know the saint is Saint Stephen because he holds a rock, as a symbol of his matyrdom, which was being stoned to death. But wait! That's an interesting looking rock! It looks like a piece of worked flint, a hand axe!!

Jehan Fouquet came from the Touraine, which is full of flint and prehistoric tools. Did he own this particular rock, and understand it to be a prehistoric tool?

The rock appears to be worked on both sides and flaked so as to have a pointed tip. Scientists studying the painting today think it might be as old as half a million years, and of a type known as Acheulean handaxes.

The earliest mention in written documents of handaxes dates from the mid-16th century, but people at that time thought they were natural and referred to them as 'thunderstones', believing they fell from the sky. It wasn't until the 17th and 18th centuries that their true origins were guessed at.

To back up their idea that the stone in the painting is an Acheulean handaxe the scientists analysed the overall shape and found it had a 95% match to handaxes made in France. They also analysed the colour and compared it to 20 Acheulean handaxes found in France. Their conclusion that the careful application of yellows, browns and reds typical of these French axes shows that Fouquet went to great trouble to accurately depict the object. This included painting 33 flake scar marks (the scientists found that 30 was the average on the actual axes). Infra red analysis also showed he had reworked the axe and had done an underdrawing. It is difficult not to come to the conclusion that Fouquet had access to or had seen this handaxe.

The scientists think the handaxe intrigued Fouquet and he deliberately carefully portrayed it. What he cannot have known was that these axes were used in Europe by pre-Homo sapiens species.

Fouquet is considered one of the most important artists of his time because of his early adoption and skill with oil paints. The original of the painting is now in the Staatliche Museen in Berlin (the Virgin and Child is in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp).

It's (nearly) April So It Must Be Canola

A typical spring scene in the Pays Saumurois, the countryside around the town of Saumur. Lots of grapes, some wheat, some ploughed earth, some canola, a narrow winding bitumen road and on the highest ground, mixed deciduous broadleaf forest. 

The canola (Fr. colza) is in flower again. It's widely grown as a crop here to produce oil, biodiesel and a high protein stock feed (which is actually a by-product after the oil is extracted). Only palm and soybean are more important globally as oil producing crops. The EU is the biggest producer, followed by Canada and the US. It is favoured as a source of biodiesel because canola produces more oil per hectare than other oil seed crops and freezes at a lower temperature than other oils.

Bees love it and many of the apiarists here will sell a pale creamed or set honey labelled colza. The honey crystalises easily, which is a nuisance for the beekeeper and the crop can cause a boom and bust situation in the hive. It flowers relatively early, but doesn't last very long, so if the bees don't have anything to move on to it can be a disaster for them. On the arable farms where canola is grown crop margins where wild flowers might grow are getting smaller and smaller. These days the bees are in real danger of starving after the canola finishes flowering.

 

Roe Deer in agricultural rape grown as an autumn cover crop. This cousin of canola is a good nitrogen fixer, suppresses weeds and prevents erosion. Roe Deer find the flowers irresistable.

Canola is prone to fungal diseases and invertebrate attack as a crop and is typically sprayed with fungicide about 8 times between late August when it is planted and early June when it is harvested. It will be liberally sprinkled with slug pellets when young, and sprayed with insecticide to treat flea beetle when mature.

A canola crop in flower near the Chateau of Montpoupon.

A few producers process their crop on the farm. The oil produced is virgin, that is to say, it is the product of the first pressing, unmixed with later pressings. According to this producer, before the pressing the seeds are meticulously sorted to make sure any insect contamination is removed. The oil is extracted, using a technique that does not raise the temperature of it beyond 50°C. Contrary to normal practice the oil is not then filtered. Instead it is left to settle and slowly decanted. The finished product is clear and delicate, and has retained all its nutritional components and aromas.  Use it for flavouring and cooking but it is not suitable for frying.

Looking Forward to Spring Flowers in the Touraine Loire Valley

Spring flowering in the Loire Valley chateaux gardens will peak in April. This what we got to enjoy last year. Make sure you are here for it this year!

Potager garden, Chateau de Villandry.

Potager garden, Chateau de Villandry.

Quince blossom.

Magnolia blossom.

Catherine de Medici's garden, Chateau de Chenonceau.

Wisteria, and the Chateau Royal d'Amboise in the fog.

Later, the fog had cleared.

Honesty, Chateau de Chenonceau.

Judas trees, Loches.

Tulips, Chateau de Cheverny.

Lilac.