Rural Life

The janvier blues don't exist

In the UK they can't seem to decide if Monday 17th or Monday 24th January is the most depressing day of the year this year.  The January blues seem to have hit harder this year than previously - I guess a combination of 'flu, roads full of pot holes, VAT rises, austerity measures, redundancy notices and stories about murder on the BBC website is enough to dint the happiest of spirits.

Here in rural France, January is a particularly convivial time.  People send New Year cards and those arrive all through January.  Most clubs and societies have their AGMs at this time of year - a new committee for a new calendar year seems to be the philosophy.  These meetings always end with a glass of something or two (usually alcoholic) and a sharing of a galette des rois or Kings cake (again generally more than one). 

The tradition of the galette is a long one, and round here they are either made of brioche - a lovely light sponge, and frosted with sugar flakes - or what they call frangipane - a layer of puff pastry, almond paste piped thickly into the middle and then another layer of puff pastry and baked to a rich golden colour.  Both styles of galette have in common that each will contain a feve or bean - originally it was a real bean, nowadays it is a small porcelain figurine (highly collectable), and in rare cases a small gold coin.  Whoever gets the slice of galette with the feve is king for the day and also gets a gold card crown.  Such ceremonies go on all through January, we normally get three or four rounds, and who can be glum with that?

It is also a time for group dinners - the Comite des Fetes had theirs in December, but the one for Huguette's walking group was on the 14th January, and last night, the biggest knees-up of the year took place - the dinner dance for the volunteers who worked at the Comice (see previous posts).  As the big centre in Bauge is being renovated, they hired five coaches to transport over 300 of us to away south of Saumur, where in a local centre, the Comice band had set up and one of our local caterers had been hard at work.  Apertifs, a four course dinner, lots of wine and methode traditionnelle (Saumur fizz which is as good if not better than champagne), dancing - what a night!  We caught the early coach home (1:30am) with the pensioners and those who were working or hunting this morning (Sunday), but the hardened party animals stayed on until gone 4am, alternately waltzing and bopping the night away.

With February, we are into the pancake season, so we won't be glum then either, and with March the hard work of the peasant starts again - there is no time for being down in rural France.  To close, a couple of photos of last night's party.

 

 

A fine selection of mushrooms

First off - DO NOT USE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS TO IDENTIFY MUSHROOMS THAT YOU FIND - ask someone who knows, however we thought the following tale of poverty food might amuse.

This year the finances have been a bit up and down (change of government purdah in the UK among my clients, swingeing social charges for John in this country), so we have tried to make the most of the natural food around us and the bounty in the areas that we look after.  It was a good year for plums so we are distilling (a story for another day when I know how legal that is).  It was a good year for quince so we jellied a load, we made juice with a load, we sold a load, and we gave away loads as well.  Round here, sharing surplus produce is an accepted thing and when you give away one load of things, you sometimes find you get given other things (we are almost back to the plums here - but for another day).

We have one couple we are friends with who are not afraid of hard work and know the best ways to make quince juice and quince paste, so when we had a spare 20 kilos starting to turn in the house, we thought of them.  We waited until we thought they were out then dropped off the vast bags of quince at their back door and ran away.  Somehow they knew it was us - the quantity of fruit may have been a give away - so next time Reynald went mushrooming (he is a formidable forager), he had us in mind.

He turned up with a big basket with four types of mushroom.  I didn't photograph one variety - partly because I forgot and partly because when you just look at them, they are similar to toxic varieties, but they were very tasty fried in butter and served on toast.  The other three varieties were coutrolle or parasol mushrooms, morille de sapin or cauliflower mushroom (rare in the UK, don't pick) and a big bag of field mushrooms.  See below:

 

 

 

Our neighbour, feckless Joel, was not to be outdone, and turned up later that day with a bag containing a dozen more parasol mushrooms and a pound of baby puffballs, which were very common this year.  The puffballs and the melange are shown below:

 

 

It took four days of intensive mushroom eating to deal with all of that, and we felt that a week or two off mushrooms might be the thing, however just 10 days later, Reynald was back as he was in the doghouse with his good lady wife.  He had been to his secret place and had hit a motherload of cepes (Pennybuns), and picked 57 before he remembered he had to collect the wife from work.  He was a bit disappointed when he proudly showed off his booty, only to be smacked round the head as it wasn't him who was going to have to prepare all of this, and Yvette had had a hard day at work already.  It worked to my advantage as he was sent round with a big bag, and I had time to eat a load, freeze a load, make soup, and still have enough to take a couple to my Mum's as well.  Aren't they lovely?

 

But what about the One Acre Wood?  About four years ago, we got raided by a bunch of travellers who cleaned out all the edible mushrooms from our wood to sell them at the local market, and did so in such an irresponsible manner that they killed the mycelium that used to produce fine cepes and pied de mouton.  The pied de mouton are starting to come back and there were a few puffballs and a parasol mushroom this year, but nothing more.  So, remember, if you do go mushrooming, there are a few rules:

• make sure you are not on private property - not all private property is clearly marked
• only take what you can eat - it is not legal to pick to sell unless you are licenced
• do not damage the mycelium
• if in doubt, leave alone, as Nature is having a tough enough time at the moment
• if in doubt, don't eat - ask someone who really knows, and ideally share with them to make sure they are really confident about what they are saying