Soda bread - milling around

Dish of the day on Sunday featured Irish Soda Bread with St Maure de Touraine goat cheese and Forme d'Ambert blue cows-milk cheese. In photographing the various flours I used, I discovered I had flour from conventional mills, from a windmill, from a watermill and from an artisanal combimoulin.

Soda bread and cheese - a light lunch

To make the soda bread my starting ingredients were lait ribot, a Breton fermented buttermilk, and a coarse stoneground wholemeal flour from Mount Pleasant Windmill of Kirton-in-Lindsey, Lincolnshire, "specially milled for soda bread". The flour was somewhat past its sell-by date, and featured the odd bit of stalk as well as grain, but it was still perfectly OK. I mixed it half and half with spelt flour, having learned from my long-ago efforts with wholemeal bread which could have been used to build walls.

Ingredients

The French equivalent of wholemeal flour bears the code T150, for farine de blé complète.  We have T150 flour from Le Moulin Boutard, the last watermill operating today in Bourgueil.

It is increasingly common to find artisanal flour at farm shops, farmers' markets and producer co-operatives like the Biocoops, and TerreyFruits in Descartes. In seeking to diversify, cereal farmers such as the DuBois family at La Ratinière, Civray sur Esves, are investing in a compact milling setup to produce their own flour. This is even more marketable if they have AB (organic) status.

Fresh flour stone ground on the farm

A "combimoulin" has a set of millstones connected to a flour grader. The model on the flour packet above is "The Villandry". The whole operation is so compact that the producer can take a complete working demonstration of their products to agricultural fairs, farm open days etc. We saw this one in action at the environment fair in Le Blanc this summer.

Back to the soda bread - did you know that it's not of Irish origin at all, but was first baked by Native Americans using wood ash as a source of potassium carbonate? It's in Wikipedia so it must be true.

The recipe is based on that in "Best Ever Baking" by Carole Clements. In this recipe, fermented buttermilk provides the acid that reacts with baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to generate carbon dioxide bubbles that make the bread rise. The dough is kneaded before going into the oven. You're often told not to knead soda bread, as it knocks the bubbles out of it. This bread rose nicely and was still moist on the third day - all too often, soda bread resembles a sanding block after a day.

Spelt flour, if you can get it, helps any bread to rise well. If you can't, use ordinary plain flour. For a lighter texture, increase the proportion of spelt flour to wholemeal.

Ingredients

8 oz/220gm spelt flour (or plain flour)
8 oz/220gm coarsely ground wholemeal flour
1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
1 oz /30gm butter or margarine, melted, at room temperature
10 fl oz/300ml buttermilk, or lait ribot (Breton: laezh-ribod), or tykmaelk (Danish) or runny yoghurt
1 tbsp plain flour, for dusting

Method

Oven temperature 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6
Lightly grease a baking tray.
Stir together the flours, soda and salt. Make a well in the centre and pour in the butter and buttermilk. Using a fork, gradually mix in the flour, working outwards from the centre of the bowl until all the flour is incorporated into a fairly soft dough.
Flour a work surface and your hands. Form the mixture into a ball and place it on the work surface. Knead the dough for three minutes, flouring the surface again if the dough sticks. Form the dough into a flattened ball and place it on the tray. Using a sharp knife, cut a cross in the top of the ball to divide it into four portions. Dust with a little more flour.

Bake towards the top of the oven for 40 - 50 minutes, until brown. Check that the loaf is done by taking it out of the oven and rapping it underneath with your knuckles. If it sounds hollow, it's done.

Well risen

Take a chunk

What's next, I wonder?

Have a good Christmas!

"La Tourangelle de Noël" - Christmas bière No.2

The second beer we tried was the Brasserie de l'Aurore's 2013 offering...

Brasserie de l'Aurore "La Tourangelle de Noël" 6.5% ABV

The head, as you can see from the above was thick and creamy...
the taste was smooth, burnt notes and bitterly hoppy.

The colour was dark... the beer rich in the mouth.

The nose... on pouring... for me, was almost absent.

Tasting it at cellier temperature it was smokey with a hint of orange...
with a long hop finish.
As it warmed... still smokey... more woodsmoke than burnt, more orangey...

I gave mine a ten second burst in the microwave...
not mulling it, just speeding up the warming process...
this brought out a hint of liquorice in the mouth.

The finish became more biscuity...
that hint of liquorice was there at the end...
and it still had a hop bite that lingered long.

The nose improved...
smokey, orangey and with a clear honey note...
that Pauline had been detecting since the start!

Not a beer to hurry...
it is dry, full flavoured but not overly spicy.
Will be nice to see how it compares with last years...

We had a Grimbergen "Brassin de Noël" afterwards which was notably sweeter, more spicey and somewhat thinner in the mouthfeel despite also being 6.5%ABV.
As we started with the "Brassin" it will be our point of reference for these tastings...

Additionally... we have now sourced the Leffe "Bière de Noël"...
just this year's Pelforth and PigeonNoël to find...
the hunt is still on!

Colcannon....a taste of Ireland

...or possibly Scotland, as we will see.

We've grown kale for many years, long before it became fashionable. There are three basic kinds of kale: curly kale, known in the US as Scotch kale; Russian kale; and Cavalo Nero or Black kale. You will see some lovely pictures of curly kale here, growing just up the road in St. Aignan.

We grow the last two kinds as we like the taste, and we have found the deeply ruffled leaves of curly kale are impossible to clean properly. Russian kale has flat leaves with wavy edges, and Red Russian leaves are grey green with pink veins, shading to a purplish red at the edges. Graines Baumaux describes it as an American speciality. The plants are so decorative that they are sometimes included in floral displays. We found them in Bourgueil once upon a time in the municipal planters.

Red Russian kale - about to become Colcannon

Cavolo Nero is also known as Nero di Toscana, Black Tuscan, chou palmier, dinosaur kale and lacinato. The leaves are dimpled and netted (hence the dinosaur), dark green, long and straplike, with the edgesrolled so as to form tubes. The plant looks a bit like a palm tree (palmier). Last year Gamm Vert was selling them for 6€ apiece for your flower bed, a price which will get you 8 grammes of seeds, i.e. a couple of thousand plants, with 40 cents change.

Nero di Toscana - that's going in too

Given some leftover cooked kale and potatoes, my Scots-Irish ancestry decided I ought to make Colcannon. This name comes from the Gaelic cal ceannann which means white-headed cabbage. It is basically mashed potatoes mixed with kale or cabbage, and flavoured with leek or spring onions. There are dozens of tasty dishes called colcannon on the web, all different, occasionally wildly different, many claiming to be 'traditional'.

If you wish to start a lively debate between people with Irish backgrounds, ask them what they think should be included in colcannon, particularly with reference to bacon. Mary, former head cook at the West Riding on Dewsbury Station and a legend in her own lunchtime, once did this, as she was as confused as I am by the choice. One person said their mother insisted that you never put bacon in Colcannon. The second's mother insisted the opposite. The third's mother said no to bacon but their grandmother said yes. I reckon you just put into the pot what you had, and in many a family most of what they had would have been potatoes. All the odd spices and so forth amounts to bloggers and professional cookery writers trying to come up with something uniquely their own that won't infringe someone else's copyright.

The recipe that follows, such as it is, uses leftover potatoes and kale, since this is what we had. Made like this, the dish is known as Scottish Colcannon according to Wikipedia, so it must be true. It calls for a good floury mashing potato such as Stemster, Bintje, King Edward or Russet Burbank. Roughly equal weight of spuds and greens is ideal but it's just as good if heavy on the potato side. If starting from raw ingredients, I hope I can still manage to cookboil potatoes and cabbage without referring to a recipe. I could steam, stir-fry, microwave, pressure cook them, it comes to the same thing in the end. The spring onions don't have to be cooked, but I find that's rather indigestible. The only thing I insist on is that the potatoes are peeled, but that's just me.

Ingredients
Leftover boiled potatoes
Leftover greens - lightly cooked kale or cabbage, thinly sliced
A leek, white part only, finely chopped, up to you what you consider to be the white part. You could also use a small bunch of spring onions (scallions) or chives
A little milk or buttermilk or single cream
Some butter

Method
Poach the leek or spring onions in the milk until soft (about 15 minutes for leek, 5 minutes for spring onions or chives).

Tip the potatoes into the leeky milk and add half of the butter. Stir well, bring the liquid to the boil again, and cook gently for 5 minutes with the lid on to reheat the potatoes. Mash thoroughly with a potato masher or fork.

Meanwhile, reheat the greens thoroughly, taking care not to let them dry out (I microwaved the kale on medium for three minutes in one-minute bursts, checking the temperature each time).

Mix the greens into the mashed potato and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately. When serving, make a well in the middle of the mound of potato and put in the rest of the butter to melt.

Comfort food par excellence

Colcannon goes particularly well with boiled bacon or gammon, but could be served as an accompaniment to virtually any main course, carnivore or vegetarian. We had leftover beef, for which Tim conjured up a tasty sauce containing leftover squash puree.

Historical Footnote
According to some, Colcannon was traditionally used for predicting marriage on Halloween. Charms were hidden in the Colcannon and depending on what charm you found it was seen as a portent for the future. A button meant you would remain a bachelor and a thimble meant you would remain a spinster for the coming year. A ring meant you would get married and a coin meant you would come into wealth. In other traditions, an unmarried girl could put Colcannon (some say the first and last spoonful) into a sock and tie it to her front door handle. The first man to enter the house was her husband-to-be. She would at least have a good reason why her socks smelled of cabbage. And anyone choking on a charm would meet their maker in the coming year, or indeed in the coming few minutes. (All  right, I made that one up.)

How widely these traditions were practised is unclear, likewise how widely the mickeys of socio-ethnic researchers were taken. The web has spread these blagues across the world, and many think they are charming, but as Mary Bergfeld puts it in her blog One Perfect Bite, "Immigration statistics and the birth rate, all those years ago, lead me to believe this didn't work real well".

Little Golden Apples

One of the highlights of the Tournon St Pierre "Foire aux Arbres" on 24th November each year is a stall run by the local Lions Club, selling nothing but Leonidas chocolates and home-grown pumpkins, in aid of children's health charities. This year we noticed a bucket of tennis-ball sized yellow things, and we asked what they were."Pommes d'or", explained the stall holder. "Délicieuses!"

Ever fools for an unknown pumpkin, we picked out a matching pair, and handed over a euro.

For a fortnight they sat on the stairs with the Crown Princes.

Two yellow hand grenades

Last Friday night we ate them - rather too rapidly to take any pictures! That golden skin proved to be rather tougher than Kevlar™ - don't try to peel one - and it took me five minutes to cut around the stalks, at grave risk to my fingers, to make hats so that we could stuff them. I scraped out the seeds to reveal stringy-looking flesh, perhaps a centimetre thick, or a bit less. Unpromising. But it smelt good.

We pre-cooked the squashes in a lidded Pyrex casserole in the microwave for 10 minutes with a little water inside and out, while Tim made a stuffing of leftover pot-roast beef, onion and celeriac. Then we stuffed and baked them for half an hour, and served them with Pink Fir Apple potatoes and chard.

They were, indeed, delicious - incredibly rich, sweet, creamy flesh with flavours of honey and chestnut. We scraped out the last of the flesh with teaspoons, The skins have gone even harder, leaving a solid cup which looks as though it is made of bakelite.  Later I found the recommended approach to be roasting them whole until soft(er) then cutting, or you could puncture them with a barbecue skewer or hammer drill and microwave them whole likewise. Other Pomme d'Or fanatics describe the skin variously as

"wickedly hard...like cut your finger off if you try to slice it hard"
"The Hardest Substance Known to Man".

They are perfect for sound effects of horses' hooves

I found several recipes specifically for Pomme d'Or on the web, logged by people who had much the same experience as me: struggle, followed by doubt, then inspiration and finally exaltation. In the recipe here the Pommes d'Or are halved (after pre-cooking) and filled with a risotto of wild mushrooms. I think they would be good with a cheesy filling, like this one. Tim suggests filling them with Spiced Pumpkin Icecream and freezing them, to serve up for special guests. For a main course, you need to allow two Pommes d'Or per head; one apiece for a starter or dessert.

Sunlight through squash skin

But that would mean getting a whole lot more. A little research informed me that all the seeds available commercially originate in France and are AB (organic). Germinance claim to sell their seeds at The All-Green Pea, but no, the Bio Co-op doesn't sell seeds, at this time of year at least. An alternative is to buy on-line from Germinance, from Ferme St Marthe or their partner the Organic Gardening Catalogue in the UK.

Apparently Pomme d'Or plants are gallopers capable of producing 20 hand grenades each. No wonder they were on sale by the bucket full! They can be grown as a climber - they won't like it, though.

Tail of a spoon

Having made a series of fruit cakes, I thought it was time for a change. Since we have a squad of squash and a plethora of pumpkins, I looked up a favourite recipe for pumpkin tea bread - a fine squidgy accompaniment for morning coffee or afternoon tea. My version uses a half pint of pumpkin purée, so I attacked a large butternut squash with - a gadget! It's the ideal tool for removing the seeds from a squash or a melon, and it's the only one in the world.

A keen edge

Every day, my parents made one or other of the great (nay, the only) British sauces - gravy and custard. Both require lots of stirring to incorporate a powder into a liquid - flour into stock in the case of gravy, custard powder into milk for the sort of custard my parents made. They always used the same saucepan and spoon. Over the course of fifty years, abrasion wore away the tip of the bowl, leaving a half-moon shaped curved edge as sharp as a razor. It's a perfect fit to the seed pocket of a squash. Thinks: the eroding metal must have been swallowed...

A speedy exit for the squash seeds

On the back of the spoon handle there are two stamps. one says "P.A&S" with a shield bearing a mailed arm holding a pennant; the other says "ASHBERRY".

Mark of Philip Ashberry and Sons, Sheffield.

The spoon is made of EPNS - electro plated nickel silver

These marks indicate that the spoon was made by Philip Ashberry and Sons of Sheffield, now part of the Spear and Jackson group. The P.A&S stamp was used by Ashberry between 1880 and 1935. My Dad would have been 15 years old in 1935. He and Mum were married in 1948 and started married life with a new set of Viners EPNS cutlery. Knowing my Dad, he never wasted anything. Of course he'd use an old spoon to make the gravy! And I used one of the Viners forks to mash the steamed squash. So it goes...

Many thanks to Giorgio B. for this information from his web page BRITISH ELECTROPLATE SILVER AND SILVER PLATE MARKS, which is just one of 1000 pages of A Small Collection of Antique Silver and Objects of vertu, an extremely modest title for an enormous work of detailed research.

Wines are not the only fruit... Les bières de Noël

A selection of local micro-brewed Christmas Beers.

One thing that Pauline and I like are dark winter beers...
and the Christmas beers always seem to fit the bill...
often superb with fruit cake, they can be enjoyed sitting in front of a nice open fire...
or, if your agent deliberately ignores the fire on your design....
in front of the television...
with the "open log fire" DVD running...
[choice of real log fire sound.... or Classical musak!].

With food at mealtimes, they readily accompany...
roast meat, be it winged or hooved....
especially game...
also sausage... be that with mash...
or dried and sliced with a strong mustard and some wholemeal bread.

Normally spicy, they also withstand "mulling"....
if you pop half a pint in the microwave for 10 seconds...
or 20 on low power...
much easier.. and nicer than sticking a poker in the beer...
it warms it up enough to release more of the spice notes.
In the UK, Daleside Morroco [5.5%ABV] fits the bill for a mulled winter brew....
although it is not a Christmas brew as such.

Bieres de Noël have, however, a strong tradition on the continent...
Pelforth in France....
and both Leffe and Grimbergen in Belgium...
are readily available commercial varieties.
But you need to be ready to grab them when seen, as they are "limited editions"...
and therefore only on the shelves for a short while.
Not "real ale in a bottle", these will keep for only a couple of years at most...
and certainly will not mature in the bottle.

Even rarer are the offerings from the micros...
our local micros are no exceptions...
Brasserie de l'Aurore used to offer Tourone de Noël [6.5% ABV]...
but this year the name has changed to La Tourangelle de Noël [6.5% ABV].

2012 on the left... this years on the right.

Simply Market in Liguel stocks these Cormery (37) beers...

and has the Christmas offering on the shelf at the moment.
Our Tourist Office in le Grand Pressigny also sells the Aurore beers...
very convenient!!

Brasserie Pigeonelle at Céré la ronde (37) offers Pigeonoël [x% ABV]...

difficult to find this one, try LeClerc at Loches.

Finally, a little further afield...
is the offering from the Brasserie de Bellefois [Neuville de Poitou (86)]...
simply named Bière de Noël [5.6% ABV]....

available from SuperU in La Roche Posay.
All these brews are on the yeast, mature in the bottle and will keep happily for a few years...
so shove some in a cool, dark place for comparison with the next offering.

If there is a "winter" brew of any sort from the Brasserie Sancerroise [Sancerre (18)]...
we haven't come across it! [And I cannot find mention on their site, either.]

We've also found in the Biocoop two other Christmas ales....
the Brasserie "La Goule" [Foussignac (16)]...  Bière de Noël [6% ABV] and...
from Brasserie du Val de Sèvre [Pamproux (79)]... La Belette de Noël [8% ABV]...
the latter in a style unusual for France...
a Rauchbier... a German-style smokey beer using both torrified and smoked barley malts...
that is going to be a nice contrast...
and will most certainly suit a meal of cold meats and sausage!!
With a strong mustard... and grainy bread!
Both of these are also quite close by....
being from the Poitou region.

La Belette is a Weasel

We will be posting on each of the beers as we try them.

Not yet having sourced the Leffe and Pelforth offerings for this year,
we are starting with the Grimbergen "Brassin de Noël" [6.5% ABV]...
rich looking, with a good head as I poured this out into an old late 30s "Pelforth 43" glass.

Almost as poured... I very nearly forgot to take a picture!
But only a few sips gone...

Pelforth 43 was a Scotch Ale
[ie: a Heavy or 90/-... rich, brown and well flavoured]

All the dark beers benefit from the use of a goblet style glass...
the warmth of your hand holding the bowl helps release the "notes".
I poured at the temperature of our cellier [pantry]...
currently 15°Centigrade...
to be honest, that was a bit cold!!
The beer improved as I held it,
Pauline found the same with hers...
served in a Carlsberg "Imperial Stout" glass I spotted at a vide grenier.
[Carlsberg "Imperial Stout" [8.6% ABV]... if you can find it]
There were no serving temperatures mentioned on the bottle...
however, it said 8°Centigrade on the cardboard pack! 
But all dark ales are NOT destined to be served from the fridge!!

Way too cold... these are room temperature beers.

Most notable to me were cinnamon and burnt toffee on the nose...
and blackberries, nutmeg and ginger and caramel in the mouth...
with a none too punchy, hoppy head.
Definitely a "sipping" beer, the flavours lingered on the tongue for a long time.
Complex, these flavours came at different times... and the head kept very well...
I let it warm up in the room for about an hour after pouring, taking a sip every so often...
large traces of the head stayed right to the end.
Likely "mulling" candidate...
Altogether, very tasty!!
First time of trying...
probably buy a pack next year, too!

_______________________________________________________________________________

Links to the local microbreweries...

Brasserie de l'Aurore
Brasserie Pigeonelle
Brasserie de Bellefois
Brasserie Artisinale "La Goule"
Brasserie du Val de Sèvre 
Brasserie Sancerroise

Please note:
LIDL do a Christmas Beer...
this is the Watneys of the style...
not worth the effort lifting the pack!! 

Gleaning

Once again La Nouvelle République has produced a fascinating back-page article, this time in response to Marcel B. of Glenouze, Vienne. He writes,

"At the edge of our communal road there are some walnut trees, whose nuts fall onto the road and are crushed by vehicles. I am authorised by the mayor to collect them, even from the communal roads. But, normally, who do the nuts belong to? And gleaning of wheat, sunflowers, maize - is it allowed?".

Gerroffa moi nuts! Walnut trees by the D103, Le Grand Pressigny

Gleaning (le glanage) - the practice of collecting fallen grain and other crops after harvest - is at least as old as the Bible story of Ruth, and probably goes back to the first cultivation of cereals, fruits and vegetables in the Neolithic period. When you don't have enough to eat, every grain counts.

Christophe Boutin's article of 29th November begins:

In these anti-waste times, gleaning and salvaging are beneficial, not to mention ecologically sound. On condition that rights are respected, and these can differ from one commune to another.

He continues...

Gleaning is an ancestral right which has gone through a number of changes (see Case Law, below). The civil code (Article 520) is drawn up on the principle that "harvests of standing crops are biens immeubles (fixtures) and fallen crops and leavings are biens meubles (movable property, furnishings)". [The distinction between biens immeubles and biens meubles is fundamental to French property law, not least when it comes to inheritance.] However a meuble on a private property belongs a priori to the proprietor. Nothing entitles you to help yourself to it or to enter the property when it has fallen to the ground. By contrast, apples from your neighbour's tree that have fallen onto your land belong to you. But only if they are windfalls. If they fall in the street, picking them up in a public place is not an issue.

Jerry gleaning for windfall apples. There's one behind you...

In fact the law of 9 July 1888 (Article 19) gives the right to municipal authorities to forbid gleaning. If there is no such bye-law, then it is allowed, during the hours of daylight ("in sight of everyone"), on a piece of land that is cultivated but not walled off, that has already been harvested. Gleaning must be done by hand (without tools, and in limited quantities). One particular local code stands out: in Franche-Comté, fruits, vegetables, cereals and other crops are considered to have been abandoned by their proprietor if they have not been harvested by 1st November. Any remaining fruits and crops then belong to whoever collects them.

By day and without tools, gleaning is widely tolerated in France. It is distinct from three other practices: "maraudage", "grapillage" and "râtelage". The first refers to helping yourself to cultivated fruit and vegetables when they are still in the ground. The second is picking, after the harvest, what remains on fruit trees or vines, which could form a second harvest. The third uses tools such as rakes (râteaux) for "harvesting".

Gleaning on the French coasts concerns items thrown up by the sea, seaweed and driftwood. Often polluted, unfit for consumption or impregnated with salt, these "gleanings" would require precautions and restricted use. As with sea angling, this harvest is strictly regulated and limited to specified zones. Respect for local practices and the environment implies taking local advice.

Not that the modern harvest leaves much grain to glean (except on the road)

En savoir plus...

Ancestral: the right to glean is based on a royal edict of 2nd November 1554 "the right to glean is authorised to the poor, the unfortunate, the underprivileged, the elderly, the disabled and little children. On another's land, it can only be undertaken after the harvest has been removed, and by hand, without the use of any tool".

not much here...

Case law: "Gleaning is closely linked to local customs and is only allowed within that framework" (verdict of the Court of Appeal of Montpellier, 21st June 2007). "The collection of unharvested potatoes from cultivated fields constitutes gleaning" (verdict of the Court of Appeal of Aix-en-Provence, 20th November 1991).

Too late now...

Reading: see "Les Glaneurs et La Glaneuse" (1999) by Agnès Varda. "Gleaners both male and female, salvagers, skip-divers and freegans, whether by necessity, by chance or by choice, are all in contact with the leavings of others. Potatoes, apples and other foods thrown away, ownerless objects and clocks with no hands, that's the gleaning of our times".

Just remember:

• Every year in the UK 18 million tonnes of food end up in landfill.  (Food AWARE)
• Figures from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers show as much as 2bn tonnes of food never makes it on to a plate. (The Guardian, 10 Jan 2013)
• The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people of the 7.1 billion people in the world, or one in eight, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012. (World Hunger)