Spring And Cooking For The French

 

Spring And Cooking For The French

Spring

Spring announced itself this week but is predicted to take a break next week. Anyway it is coming and lasted long enough for me to get some useful things done. I’ve cleared the space where I will plant potatoes and onions but my seed potatoes could do with more time to continue sprouting so I will delay planting them for another ten days. I fed the gooseberry bushes and the garlic and shallots that are already well on the way and hope that will provide results in June. I also planted some climbing bean seeds and some spring onion and spinach beet seeds on my balcony. So vegetable growing is on the go. I have some more weeding to do among the leeks and cabbages and have to think what to do with about 10sm covered in cress. If next week is as dull and wet as the weather forecast predicts further action will have to wait a week and then I shall go to the market in Vaison to see what plants are on offer. It’s a temporary pause but I can feel the adrenalin flowing.

I have about 10 daffodils flowering out front and primroses are flowering on all the sheltered banks around. I haven’t noticed any violets or Japonica but they will certainly be around somewhere. And forsythia is blooming on my allotment. I’m waiting for the sunflower seeds that the birds that feed on my balcony always drop to sprout in the pots below so that I can transfer them to the allotment too. There’s a robust aquilegia there and I ‘ll have to think what other flowers I’ll grow there, probably marigolds or nasturtiums because both are easy.

Cooking For The French

Last night I had Daniel and Jean-Claude around to eat and I cooked a Chinese style chicken with rice, water chestnuts and bean sprouts. Jean-Claude was delighted but Daniel much less enthused; he liked the chicken and rice but not the water chestnuts or bean sprouts. This is a common problem I find when inviting French friends. Most, but happily not all, of my French friends have very conservative and traditional tastes. Spices are a risk. Saffron is OK but others are debatable. Chilli in any significant quantity is a definite no-no. I once asked a French friend why there was always fresh ginger in the supermarkets but no one seemed to cook with it. The answer was that the French make a tea, “tisane” with it but, cook with it? Never. Yet the rougail de saucisses I made a couple of weeks ago was roundly acclaimed and full of ginger. I think the problem may lie in innate traditional French tastes. I remember a programme years ago in which some renowned English chefs were invited to create a meal for their French counterparts. The meal went well, as expected, but what was not expected was the French reaction to the desert, made with elderberry flowers. The French gastronomes were delighted with the desert and all said “but we have elderberry flowers, why don’t we use them?” I suspect that, prior to this, any desert served to the French using the flavour of elderflowers would have been regarded with suspicion. However once tasted and used by a French chef it would be happily accepted. A friend who has spent time in Thailand, as I have, has the same reaction as I to the meals offered by a Thai lady in the village. We both say that the meals are OK but they are not Thai. Why? Because they have been adapted to French tastes (and, in fact, are popular here). They lack the authentic Thai flavour. But give the French an authentic Thai meal and most of them won’t like it. Perhaps it has something to do with travel. The French, in general, don’t have “la bougeotte”, itchy feet; after all France itself an offer almost any kind of holiday you want. So they tend not to have the experience of authentic foreign cuisine as much as other nationalities do. Only those French who have travelled extensively are likely to appreciate it.

Rewriting History

 

Rewriting History

The weather is inclement so not much boules playing or gardening and too much TV watching. I’m already to go on the allotment but need to wait another week or so. IMarch is the starting point for me. So here’s another blog post.

The TV watching hasn’t been entirely without point though. I was aware that archaeology h had gone high-tec, no longer just scrapers and paint brushes, but not up to date on recent findings, some of which I find greatly pleasing. I have always been much more interested in social history, books like Mayhew’s London, Akenfield and Montbaillou, than the kings and wars I was taught about at school; and some recent findins have reinforced that. In particular some findings about the so-called Dark Ages in Britain after the Romans all left, a period of presumed misery about which there is precious little documented evidence. Now, it seems, we understand it wasn’t like that at all.

I was taught that after the Romans all left (which they didn’t, only the army left, or most of it) Germanic Anglo-Saxon hordes invaded the country, laying waste to the land and driving the Britons, mostly Celts, into Wales, Cornwall and Scotland. Good kings and wars stuff that. With the new archaeological evidence, the picture doesn’t look like that at all. It looks rather more as follows.

There were probably already some Anglo-Saxons in England at the time anyway, through trade. But the Romans left a bit of a vacuum so a few boatloads arrived on a beach somewhere (sound familiar?). The local lord of the manor thought “great, I can use more manpower to farm more of my land”. The locals thought “great, more choice of whom to couple up with” and they all got coupling and farming together. Word got back to the continent that England was a good place to be (lots of pretty girls there) and boatloads more came over. DNA proves that at least the coupling happened. Of hundreds of skeletons unearthed from the period only a tiny minority show signs of violence; so no bloody invasion, perhaps a few spats (“too many foreigners here” – sound familiar?) Other technologies indicate extensive building and farming and that England was thriving at the time. The Celts in Cornwall, almost certainly not all Celts, far from beaten and cowering in rocky enclaves were doing a roaring trade with countries across the seas and building large settlements. Of course this may not be exactly as it happened but it is a more likely version than the one I was taught at school.

All this gives me the same feeling of elation that I felt when I came across chaos theory in the 1990s, which destroyed all those neat little equations I had been taught in physics. I do love it when everyone has to think again. It may be obtuse of me but it does brighten up a gloomy day.

Civilisation At A Crossroads?

 

Civilisation At A Crossroads?

This is one of my occasional “thoughts from my balcony with a Calvados to hand” pieces except that it is too cold outside to sit on the balcony. But there is still the Calvados.

I think the next few years may be a turning point in human civilisation. It’s easy to overlook how recent higher levels of education for the masses have been. In the UK it didn’t start until the 1944 Education Act and didn’t have much effect until the 1960s. I think t was pretty much the same in most other advanced European nations. I do remember from my school history lessons that collectivism, as against mob rule, didn’t start in the UK until the mid 19^th century, with the Tolpuddle martyrs, only gradually gathering force decades later. France did start it earlier, at the end of the 18^th century but remembered it only intermittently afterwards. Before that there were the rich and powerful on the one hand and the servants. Dictators and would-be ones always militate against collectivism unless they can organise it in their support. Is that where the world is going now?

What could prevent it? I think the answers les lie in George Orwell and education. Every body now should read George Orwell but they don’t and won’t. I believe, but don’t have the figures to prove, that Europe is probably the continent with the highest average level of education er inhabitant. If this is so then Europe is the only continental bastion against the move to a return to servitude and serfdom for most of the population. A collectivism of European nations is required.

The odds are quite heavily stacked against it. The rich and powerful, people or nations, control most of the media and therefore most of the means of persuasion, used to further their own interests against the interests of the general population. Forget whatever you were taught about civilised principles such as honesty, decency, thoughtfulness for others and abhorrence of corruption, this is a naked battle for power. The gloves are off. Russia is actively trying to create discord in Europe.

So can Europe (alone?) with stand the forces against it? The next few years will provide the answer and decide whether the world recedes into a quasi mediaeval state, with its wars, famine and plagues, or whether civilisation as we have come to know it continues, in Europe at least.

Footnote

Blaming the attacker for the attack is a ploy well known in feminist circles: she asked for it. Lies are a standard ploy of the extreme right, known as a useful tactic by such as Hitler, Mussolini and Johnson and now Putin and Trump. Misinformation is a standard tactic in war, made more likely when nations fail to unite. Education and collectivism are the only defence.

February And Trump: A Deadly Combination

 

Dead February

I feel I should write something this month but February is something of a dead month for me, Why? Because even in January there are vestiges of the end/ beginning of year celebrations and there can be some good weather. In February the weather is debatable and so far it has been damp and gloomy. I am longing for March. In March the weather improves, I can play boules more often, I can start serious work on my allotment and the bulbs I always plant out front are blooming; it is spring, which always gives me a psychological lift.

The one good memory of February I can recollect was in England when my children were young. We went to a local park and came back with some frog spawn in a jar which I put in an old saucepan in the garden. The following year we had 4-5 pairs of mating frogs. In the year after February was extremely wet and the clay in the garden soil resulted in pools of water everywhere, all filled with frog sporn. So we took two buckets full of frog spawn back to the park. Repayment with very generous interest.

I can feel my fingers twtching and wanting to garden but know it is too early, even for planting seeds which I shall shortly do. I’ll start them in my living room and then transfer them on to the balcony. But even that needs to wait a couple of weeks. The one thing I have been able to do is buy seed potatoes, which are starting to sprout in my junk room. When March arrives I can get going and, by the end of May all will have been sown and planted both around the house and in the allotment. Until then I find myself in limbo, with jst a sigle daffodil in the front to console me.

On the cooking front I’ve been searching for some Chinese curry paste and finally found some on Amazon. When passing through Paris in days long past I often ate at a restaurant called La Pagoda at the foot of the boulevard St Michel. They did an excellent chicken curry and I’ve often thought about tryingto replicate it at home. Now is my chance. Unlike in Indian curries the vegetables need to be fairly crisp. I shall try it on some French friends who can’t tolerate much chilli. The last time friends came to eat I made a rougail de saucisses which went down very well. There’s someone in the village who makes that and offers it as a take-away meal and I find that rather insipid and dislike chewing on the casing of the Montbeliard sausages that every recipe seems to include. Trying to get the casing off these sausages when cooked is a thankless task. Instead I used Morteau sausages, took off the casing when they were cooked and added lots of ginger and cumin and also some sage and turmeric and topped it all off with fresh coriander. Two of my friends asked for the recipe so it obviously worked.

Heil Trump?

Trump swinging his demolition ball seems to be causing consternation all around, even in his own party. Using it against multinational agencies is certainly very destructive, particularly for those around the world providing aid to those who need it. It is not clear to me whether he is using it as a negotiating tool or whether he is simply being destructive and I don’t suppose he cares either way. It obviously feeds his ego.

By siding with Putin and the Israeli IDF Trump clearly shows that he believes militarily stronger nations have the right to take territory from militarily weaker ones. Military and economic power bestow the right would seem to be the new rules of the game. That has very wide implications, for Taiwan for instance. The implications are stark for Europe too; and for US bases around the world. If the USA is to take no part in the defence of other countries, other countries have no need of them. There are important implications for NATO too. Maybe NATO needs an Asian alliance, with or without the USA. If smaller countries are to bt the mercy of larger ones their only effective defence has to be very wide ranging alliances. The USA need have no fear of Russia but what about a Russia, China, North Korea alliance? There is little honour among dictators.

Limiting Trump’s destruction will require coordinated effort by other countries and the strength of the US courts will be tested if he is not to weaken democratic processes in the USA for which he clearly has little regard. It’s a big ask.

Christmas And New Year

CChristmas

So Christmas came and went, in three short days. It seems a lot longer in the anticipation and preparation than its execution. I pent those three days very happily ; with Daniel and friends on the Tuesday, with Pat and her family in Beaumont on Wednesday and with friends at my house on the Thursday. I even had dogs at Pat’s house and I don’t think a Christmas is really complete without children or dogs. Even one of the dogs was called Hugo ; what more could I ask for ? Several days spent happily with friends (and dogs).

New Year Thoughts

And so I look now towards the new year. A new year is traditionally a time for resolutions but I am bad at that. Probably I should make some but I (cowardly?) prefer to adapt to the flow.

It is also a time to look forward and, possibly, a time to reflect back. I am fortunate in that I have a lot to look forward to.

Reflecting back I have a number of regrets, bad decisions made or decisions not made, but am consoled by someone famous saying that a life lived without regrets is a life only half lived.

Spring here is only two months away. And that is when I get going again on gardening. It will be too early to do much but I will plant potatoes and onions, sow lettuces and rocket and maybe beetroot and turnips. The ground also will need some attention, weeding and the addition of compost and manure. Hopefully then the narcissi and daffodils in front of the house should be in full bloom. And I should have my book on Mollans printed and available for distribution.

And soon after will come those warm summer evenings when I can sit on my balcony, a glass of Calvados to hand, and idly ruminate over esoteric matters such as the anomalies in quantum physics or whether the evolution of human civilisation has been linear, as most people seem to believe, or cyclic as the Hindus do. Or maybe just on why I lost a game of boules.

Reflecting Back

To hell withe the regrets, these are some of the high points. The births of my two children, at both of which I was present, are certainly two. My experience teaching at Summerhill school was certainly another. A break in my working life gave me another: back-packing overland to Bali. My career was already in IT, which found me rather than me finding it. In 1965, having returned from teaching in Senegal and having decided to have a break from teaching, I was looking for employment and ICL offered a job. I took to IT like a duck to water, wrote my first book and became a member of a NATO think tank on software futures in four short years. And in 1966 England won the football World Cup. Those years were certainly a high point. And then in the being called as an expert IT witness before the UK parliament (select committee) and EU DG13 in Brussels were certainly high points. So there have been many high points for which I am grateful. But all that is now history. For any more high points I have to look to the future.

New Year Rant

I’ll get this off my chest now. I intensely resent cell phones because of the behaviour of most of their owners. I had to have one for my job in the late 1990s, ditched it when I retired and then bought one a few years ago because life had become too difficult without one. Now I tell no one my number and keep it for emergencies. Why ?

A key argument for cell phones is that you can always be in contact. It follows that you can be in contact at the most inconvenient moments. If that happens, what do you do ? In my experience the vast majority of cell phone owners answer their phone. So if you are playing a game and it’s your turn to play all others wait while you answer ; if you are in the middle of a social gathering, you leave the gathering or force others to share your conversation. If you leave the wait for your return can be long. Why do I resent this ? Because it shows a total lack of disrespect and consideration for all others involved. And I have observed this several times over the festive period, by otherwise kind and considerate people. Maybe cell phones should be sold with a warning, much as other devices are sold with safety warnings, that inappropriate use can seriously adversely affect people’s opinion of you. I I applaud all challenges to fixed ideas but manners and respect remain bulwarks of civilisation if only because they necessarily exclude needless confrontation and blatant hate.

Christmas Is Coming

 

Christmas

It’s now the lead up to Christmas and I have been emailing friends with my Christmas letter. I’m not sending cards in general this year. So I am posting here my Christmas letter for those of you who haven’t already got it. Let me wish you a happy Christmas and a good new year anyway.

Christmas Letter

I’ve decided not to send Christmas cards generally this year, for a mixture of reasons. Nevertheless I want to keep in touch with distant friends so I have decided on an emailed letter.

It has not been an easy year for me because of several mishaps, on which I won’t elaborate, and my degrading sight and hearing. Yet there have been many positives on which I will elaborate.

Firstly my family. Nat, Andy and Eilidh came to Mollans at the end of June for a fortnight as they have done for several previous years. I think we all thoroughly enjoyed the visit, Andy cycling, Nat relaxing as far as Eilidh, being the perpetual motion machine she is, permitted. I made a scrapbook for Eilidh to record past experiences which she could add to. We did nothing of particular note but enjoyed being around one another. I went over to Scotland in October and, again, did little of note but greatly enjoyed being with them for my birthday. I also managed to fit in a visit to life-long friends Steve and Jo who left Mollans for Scotland last year.

Leaving Nat and family I went to London, staying with my friend Margaret, and seeing an old friend who was instrumental in my writing one of my books and my son, Carl. The book was translated into several languages but also, my friend told me, copied into Chinese. I didn’t know that. Copyright, what’s copyright ? If I could get a copy I could add it to the Japanese translation of my first book. And I was very pleased to see my son in better health than I have ever known him, thanks to daily visits to the gym, and with a steady job, a girlfiend of a year’s standing and a second hand car. Long may that continue.

For my other pride and joy, my gardening, it has been a very good year. The flowers in front of my house on both sides of the road have provided a good display from March until November and it is gratifying to see people sitting on the bench opposite and enjoying the view. This autumn I’ve planted another 60 daffodils and narcissi to supplement those already there that mice and rats haven’t yet found. And still, after many years, no one has complained about my digging up the roadside opposite so the Mairie has taken no action.

The allotment too has done better this year than last. The summer vegetables produced better than last year, potatos, tomatoes, onions aubergines, lettuce, rocket, corn, butternut squash and herbs. A friend, Johann, helpd me clear the fading plants out to plant leeks, cabbages, garlic, shallots and more lettuces for later this year and early next. I’ve enjoyed all of it.

My big project has been to write another book, a visitors’ guide toMollans. There is none such at the moment and, given the number of summer visitors, I consider it a viable project. Friends Claudine nd Jacques have joined in enthusiastically. I have written the text which Claudine has translated into French, we have identified a source for photos and Jacques is doing the layout. I will pay to print the book I and, when I have recuperated at least most of my costs, in about 18 months if my calculations are correct, I plan to hand the rights to the book to the village primary school (which also, incidentally, is bilingual). A school in a village of 1000 inhabitants ? And a school that is bilingual ? It’s possible and the proof is here.

Apart from all this I’ve continued with my boules, free English conversation classes in the Mairie and dining twice a week with friends. I have trouble now seeing the cochonnet if it is in shadow but am proud to retain my reputation as one of the best pointers in the area. I’m helped occasionally with the English conversation classes by Keith, the only other Englishman in the village. And food for dining is no problem ; I enjoy cooking. I also continue to write my blog on my life here, which has now surprised me with several new adherents. I started it to keep in contact with distant friends and so it continued for many years. Recently however, people from Holland Germany and Belgium have become regular readers some of whom chanced to introduce themselves at the Bar du Pont last summer. It appears they are all regular summer visitors. It was my blog that allowed me to prove Russian interference in the UK EU referendum.

So I still have a lot to be thankful for and have had a good year. I do worry about the world I will at some point leave to my family and countless others. I have been part of a very lucky generation but doubt that that experience can continue. The wealthy and powerful have learned too well how to manipulate the ill-infored and less intelligent to vote for the interests of the former. Climate change and it’s consequences are serious but not being taken eriously by the rich and powerful who are focussed on short term gain. And there is the refugee problem; as long as advanced economies sell weapons to less advanced ones there will be wars and refugees that the advanced economies don’t want to accept as a consequence of their actions. Money is the source of all evil. I would have liked to leave a different legacy.

That apart,I hope yours has been a good year too and it remains only for me to wish you and yours a merry Christmas and a good new year.

Ian

What's Left And What's Cooking

 

What’s Left And What’s Cooking

Having reached the not so very grand age of 83 I’ve been telling myszlf for the last cuple of years that what is important is to focus on what is left. Admittedly I gave up the ambition of scoring the Cup Final winning goal for Chelsea later than I should have but reality must eventually prevail.

I returned from my trip to the UK (I found London to Avignon , with one change of train, particularly impressive) to fine weather and to find that caterpillars had been feasting on my cabbages. What is left I have sprayed with a caterpillar deterrent I then got friend Johann to help me clear the summer vegetable plants and ended up with a pile of red and green tomatoes and chillis and some aubergines and courgettes. A lot of this I gave to friends and to the Bar du Pont for whoever wanted it. I kept a lot of green tomatoes with which I shall make chutney and some red tomatoes and chillis. The allotment still has cress and rocket and celery and lettuces that are not yet quite ready to pick.

So what is left for me to do this winter ? I bought 50 narcissi bulbs which I shall plant in front of the house. Idid the same last year but mice and rats get some of them although I hope I am winning that battle and will have a fuller display next year than I did earlier this year. I also plan to plant some shallots. The midday temperature today (1st November) is an unusual 23 degrees and it has been similar all week so they should get established quickly.

And then there is cooking and I like to eat well so cooking is a winter pastime for me.the activities left for me in winter.

A few days after my return the Amitié Mollaniase had arranged a meal at the Maison Familiale Rurale in Buis. The MFR is a school for future restaurateurs and meals are prepared , cooked and served by the students. It’s not often that yu see a teenage Maitre D supervising a sitting. This meal was excellent and what really impressed me was a sauce forestrière served with veal. Now is mushroom season and the shops and markets are full of various varieties : chanterelles, lactères, girolles, trompettes de la mort, etc. I like mushrooms but have always found it difficult to get the full flavour out of them when cooking them. That is what this sauce did : essence of mushroom. I’ll have to find out how it is done.

Although the days are still warm the evenings are cool enough to justify stews and hearty soups : besides which I like cooking these. For dinner guests this week I have decided to do a beef stew, an English version of pot au feu with dumplings. Fortunately you can sill get beef on the bone here, which seems to have disappeared in the UK since the outbreak of BSE. I may do cress soup to go beforehand if I can find enough large cress leaves in the allotment. I like Maroccan soups, such a chorba, so those will be on the menu bedore long, as will a Flemish dish, beef with a stout such as Guinness and onions. With summers here being too hot for dishes such as these winter offers a chance for a welcome change. Howzver I have never really mastered desserts and I love fruit. Locally grown fruit is plentiful and varied here for most of the year and that is my preference for dessert when making a meal for myself. For dinner guests it’s more problematic. The baklava I make for the street party is always well received and I can make a decent apfel strudel but that is about it. Ice cream is an easy option but maybe I’ll try working on desserts this winter. Besides, cooking is one of the activities still left for me.