Life in Rural France - Picking Wild Fruit & Pommes Aligot Recipe
Life in rural France revolves around the seasons and that means food, festivals and chores vary depending on the ebb and flow of seasonal weather and produce. There is a time for everything. Such as delicious artichokes in March and scrumptious apples in September.
My family does not have a history of farming or land ownership so our hands on experience with crops and stock is very limited. Living part time in a farming village in France has really opened our eyes to the life of a farmer and the very real connection between daily weather, seasons and produce. Getting in tune with nature has been a very positive part of living amongst the cow pastures, chicken farms and maize crops that surround our tiny village.
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Living So Remotely, It's Not Even a Village!
Many of our friends live quite remotely in France. Sometimes it's only a couple of properties near each other that get their own name and postal code. Fourdan, Guern for example, is only a few properties near each other and so remote that if you type it into Google, no village comes up in the search results, just a road, AND only part of a road at that! It's a pretty area and so peaceful - rather like a slice of heaven on earth!
This French story is about one of our visits to friends in Fourdan, which is near Guémené-sur-Scorff. With always a huge big welcome, warm hugs all round and generous hospitality, we love visiting and hanging out at the beautiful barn and gîte complex of Chris and Geoff. Whether its regional wine sipped basking in September sunshine, a hot meal shared in front of a winter fire, or a very competitive fiery game of darts, time with Chris and Geoff is always special.
Picking Potatoes for our Dinner
One visit coincided with their neighbour's very recent harvest of his potato crop and the back end of the blackberry season. Chris was chatting with me explaining the harvesting process and how not all potatoes get collected by the harvester and some get left on the ground. She explained that was what all the little dots in the furrows were - the potatoes missed by the harvester.
Picking blackberries with Chris' bucket
I immediately asked if they'd ever gone over to collect the missed vegetables that would otherwise rot away. No, they'd not done this before, but it wouldn't be a problem she thought. Sensing a new adventure in the making I asked Chris for some gumboots and buckets and clomped my way over to the neighbouring field with Anthony to go 'a spud collecting'. We climbed over the fence and went to work collecting the 'missed ones'.
Getting our hands filthy with fresh dirt and digging out the large ones, Anthony and I often chuckled at ourselves looking like we were on an Easter egg hunt. We competed for finding the largest potato and what a haul we collected! Lugging our buckets back across the field to show Geoff we almost tripped with the weight of the buckets.
Deciding our haul was too large to take inside, Anthony and I rinsed out Geoff's nearby wheelbarrow and then set about washing the veges with a garden hose in the freshly cleaned wheelbarrow. Our hands almost numbed in the cold water, but watching the dirt rinse off was almost therapeutic, even if a bit unusual for an adventure.
Our Farm to Fork Experience
Taking a handful of the larger specimens to Chris, she laughed and asked whether we'd like handmade hot chips. She had a large commercial deep fryer in her utility room that would make quick work of the job. Absolutely, we said!
So with that decided, and Chris on the job (with some help from Emily and Thomas), Anthony and I then set off again down the lane, this time to collect the fresh blackberries on the bushes along the lane. As we dashed out the door Geoff said to pick the fruit above waist height and to be very careful of the thorns.
Me and Anthony with our haul of potatoes
When we could not pick any more berries because our arms were so tired from stretching up above and the sun was loosing its strength, we headed home back up the lane. Our reward for all the picking was fresh blackberry pie which Chris expertly whipped up. What a feast!
Safe Wild Foraging
When relaying our adventure of blackberry picking and clandestine potato harvesting at church the next Sunday, Laurence who lives in a hamlet 20 minutes from Fourdan Guern, insisted a couple of guidelines should be followed when foraging for wild food. These rules are apparently well known and handed down from generation to generation in rural and farming families. Me, I had never heard of them!
When picking wild vegetables and fruits in France, it is very important to follow these guidelines:
- Always pick blackberries or any other wild berries from bushes above waist height. Wild foxes both eat the lower berries and urinate over the lower part of the bushes, and as their saliva or urine can carry disease, all farmers will recommend only harvesting berries in the wild from above the waist.
- Always take mushrooms to your local pharmacist who has been trained in distinguishing the different mushroom varieties. This is essential to avoid sickness or possible death.
So, did you know that? Totally new for me.
Pommes Aligot (Cheesy Mashed Potatoes) Recipe
Let me share with you the recipe I follow when making Aligot. This favourite is from The Food of France: A Journey for Food Lovers by Murdoch Books.
This potato puree dish is a speciality of the Auvergne region.
If you use Cantal cheese you'll achieve the stretchy elastic mixture, but if you can't find Cantal cheese, mild cheddar still tastes delicious. Mild cheddar cheese won't give you the same stretchy texture though.
Ingredients
800g floury potatoes, cut into even sized pieces
70g butter
2 garlic cloves, crushed
3 tablespoons milk
300g Cantal (or mild Cheddar cheese), grated
Procedure
- Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water for 20-30 minutes, or until tender.
- Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat and add the garlic.
- Mash the potatoes and then sieve to give a really smooth puree (don't use a food processor or they will become gluey).
- Return the potato puree to the saucepan over gentle heat and add the garlic butter and milk. Mix together well and then add the cheese, handful by handful.
- Beat in the cheese - once it has melted the mixture will be stretchy.
- Season with salt and pepper before serving.
Life in Rural France
So that's my little adventure of life in rural France and a true farm to fork experience, and the best part of it all, was to share this adventure with my family and very dear friends Chris and Geoff. To read more about our French life start with the first article in my series - It Has To Be France.
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