Do you know that dandelion is a french name… dent de lion which means lion teeth… because of the shape of its leaves.

In April, land is covered with dandelion flowers. Yes indeed, this plant is useful and the wonders of the dandelion are to be discovered…

First of all it is an easy plant to find…It grows almost everywhere, even in weird places like walls or concrete…



But be careful not to confuse them with other plants : more than hundred species are alike and have also yellow flowers. But they are not as tasty or even they can be toxic.

How to recognize a dandelion ?

The flower smells honey and if you eat its heart, it slightly sweet and taste like honey.
The stem is hollow and oozes a white liquid.
There is only one flower per stem.
Once it’s faded, the plant has fine hairs… that’s the best way to recognize them.



Its leaves are dentated : that’s the origin of its name, remember…
In French we call it pissenlit (piss in bed) because of its diuretic properties.
What to do with it ?

In France, the classical salad with potatoes, bacon and eggs.
The leaves can also be eaten cooked as spinach.
The roots were used during the second world war as a substitute to coffee.
The flowers, melliferous (plants that bees used to make honey), are used to make a wonderful jelly.



Read it in French : Vertus des plantes sauvages : le pissenlit

April is the month for harvesting dandelions. Take your knife and pick flowers, some buttons and young leaves. You’ll make the meal of the day. Try to avoid to places where dogs like to … or where foxes run (the disease they transmit is hard to heal) or where cars leave their gaz…



The jelly is so nice. It looks like honey (colour, smell and texture) and it is really good.
No wonder because the flower is melliferous (it attracts insects that make honey). Taste a flower. It is honey…

Well the recipe now

Quantity for a mug of flower well packed. Harvest as much mugs as you want and add the quantity necessary.
250 ml water
175 g sugar
A quarter of lemon in slices

Remove stems. Wash the flowers.
Pour into a saucepan with the water. Boil softly (5 minutes for a mug, 10 for 2…). Filter and strain the flowers to collect all ther liquid.
Add sugar.
Cook over low heat until the consistency of a syrup. Times varies on the number of mugs you used (for 2 mugs about 45 minutes). Transfer to pot and let cool upside down . Store also upside down.



Salad with buttons of dandelions, leaves, potatoes, soft-boiled eggs and bacon

Like bitter salad. You’ll love it… Pick some young leaves and buttons.



Ingredients
Dandelions
Lardons
Eggs (2 per person)
Potatoes (2 to 3 per person)
Dressing (with french mustard)

Wash them. Cook the potatoes in slices, the eggs (6 minutes). Fry in a sauce pan the lardons.
In the bowl, put the salad, add the potatoes, the lardons and the eggs cut in half. Finally the buttons of dandelions.
Delicious, is n’t it ????

Read it in french : Miel de pissenlit et salade aux boutons et fleurs de pissenlit

The peak season for artichokes lasts several months : from May to November.




The artichoke is a domesticated thistle ... Have you seen it blooming ? The flower looks like the thistle’s one and it smells so good…

The reproduction of the artichoke is often done thanks to a rejection from an other artichoke that grows beside and must be replanted. The plant is almost a bush, which can reach 2 meters high and provides several artichokes (big ones) for 2 or 3 years.
.
Its name comes from the Italian language which took it from Arabic. Originally, the plant is Mediterranean. Already known in Italy during the 9th century, the marriage of the French King Henry II with the Italian Catherine de Medici (1533) who loved it made him popular in France.

Even if it is a Mediterranean plant, it grows well in Brittany- the culture began early 19th century-, specially on the North coast, where the climate is quite mild. The famous golden belt around Roscoff is the coast for early vegetables and 75% of the artichokes produced in France come from the area.



In France the favorite one is the camus de Bretagne,the largest species (2 to 3 kg per head), the one eaten peeled. The southern one is much smaller and often eaten like in Spain or Italy, in oil.

Read it in French : Artichaut de Bretagne

Origine
The nasturtium is native from South America. According to sources, it comes from Peru or neighboring Andean countries (Colombia, Bolivia and even Brazil). Jesuits, during the 16th C imported it into Spain. It then conquered Europe as an edible and medicinal plant.

Description
Linné, a famous swedish botanist fixed his name in 1753 Tropaeolum majus. In Europe, the plant exists in many varieties. Annual, it is sensitive to frost. Its flower (five petals) 3 to 5 centimeters varies from yellow or red.



Its size is adaptable to your garden: dwarf (30-50 cm) for your flower pots or climbing varities (several meters) on your walls ... or creeping as ground covers ...
It has another peculiarity ... it is waterproof, water do not wet the plant but it forms drops that slide ... It is called the lotus effect ...

The growth : seedlings or cuttings
Plant indoor in February and replant in April when the weather is ok. The nasturtium likes sunny places. The plant is fragile (the stem snaps easily ... avoid windy areas). If despite your good care, it breaks, put the cuttings in sheltered soil. In a few days you will have roots. The seeds are done in July, after flowering ... Let dry until next year.



Utility ... in gardens
Aphids: Organic gardeners love them .... Very useful for gardening, flowers attract aphids .... You will just burn have to burn the blackened flowers with insects.

In the kitchen
This plant is edible, everything is (from bud to flower, seeds and leaves ....). The leaves and flowers are considered as a stimulant, they taste like watercress. They are used as flavorings in salads ( peppery flavor). In Italy, they are used to decorate dishes of fish or meat. The fruit or soft buttons can be soaked in vinegar. It tastes like capers. Spanish people aromatize their vinegar with the flowers. They often add the tarragon and pepper.

Medicinal Properties
Essential oil has antibiotic effects .. It is also used against urinary infections or flu. Or to treat bruises: crush the leaves until you get an oil. Brush the blue. It itches a little.

Sources : Wikipédia Allemagne, Espagne, France, Grande Bretagne, Italie et Portugal. Sources: Wikipedia Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy and Portugal.

Read it in French : Plante ornementale et décorative, aromatique et comestible : la capucine

Do you like cherries ? You want to plant a cherry tree in your garden !
First thing: Make sure you have well-intentioned neighbors and that tey already have a cherry tree at home ... Yes, because to harvest fruits, you need two (cherry trees) ... The tree needs friends to make cherries ...

Obviously, you know that the cherry pits are the beginning of small cherry trees... But you must be lucky .... If you just send its nucleus in the air, you have a chance among x that it will get in a place nice enough to grow. If you notice a little tiny plant, you only have won half the battle. You will still not have good cherries. Because to get soft and sweet fruits, the tree has to be grafted.



Otherwise, more simple, just go buy a cherry tree at a nursery and plant it in the right season (from November to February) ... Don't forget to think about the place it will take when adult (a cherry tree occupies a very important place... 15-20 meters high, do not plant it too close from your other trees !).

Cherry tree is native from Persia. Romans popularized it in our lands. When Japanese appreciate the cherry blossoms for their white flowers, we love it here mainly for its fruit.



Tips around cherry trees
At night, do not walk under the cherry trees... Elves are found of these trees, they like to dance under it by moonlight ... Be careful... People who danced with them never came back... If you want to join them, it will be your last dance.
Japanese have lots of symbols connected with cherry trees and eroticism... cherry blossom is compared to the short life of the samurai. They tattoo it to represent female chastity ... The cherry is very erotic ... : fruits are compared to the lips of a lover ... The juice when you bit it looks like a bleeding ...

Other properties
The cherry wood is used for making musical instruments. Traditionally, the leaves were harvested and added to infusions for people suffering from diarrhea. Or dipped in wine to relieve cough or gout. Cherry tails are known for their diuretic power. ... And pits for water bottles .... Everything is good in the cherry tree!!

Read this article in French : Conseils pour planter un cerisier dans un jardin : planter en deux pour récolter des cerises

I tasted fried salvia leaves at my neighbor’s place. In amuse gueule for the aperitif, the French “apéro” as we say, or a cocktail party as you say, it is so nice!

Sage or salvia in latin, you know ... Is this small shrub with fragrant leaves that aromatize so well our vegies...

Long ago, sage was commonly used as a medicinal plant ... She was used to almost anything ... if you believe that French saying ...

Who has sage in his garden, does not need a doctor.

In any case, it was very useful but, as there are about 900 different species, I will not say too much and make you tired of reading ...

Sage was used as aromatic plant, in decoction, against plantar warts, against hay fever (leaves were smoked during the 18th century), for its hallucinogenic properties (that's for the other side of the ocean, the New World) ...

I stop and go back to my recipe. My neighbor has a beautiful salvia shrub at home, facing south. It grows so much, she has to prune it very regularly.

Ingredients

20 leaves of sage (large ones with the stem) 80 g flour
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
7.5 cl beer
1 / 2 teaspoon baking powder
Coarse salt.

Let it rest for an hour.
In a bowl mix flour, egg, baking powder, milk, beer.
Let stand one hour (if you are in a hurry, you can do it straight away).
Heat oil. If it is hot enough, the drop of dough you let fall in the boiling liquid will rise to the surface.
Put the leaf in the dough, pass it between the tines of a fork to remove the excess of dough.
Cook it in the oil. When the stem is yellow, remove and drain on kitchen paper.
Sprinkle with coarse salt.
Eat it hot and enjoy it.

Read it in French : Recette végétarienne de beignets à la feuille de sauge

The zoo, a predictable success with children! Follow me ...

Located on the expressway Rennes - Saint Malo (Brittany, France), the zoological park of La Bourbansais is, as you guess, full of wild and exotic animals, … monkeys, wallabies, flamingos ...



lions, tigers and other zebras…In short, the classics are here.

Zoos today often are not only park animals but are also a place to save endangered species. That’s one of the goal of the zoo La Bourbansais.

The park is beautiful, you can stroll around and look at this wild world.

Animal shows are to be seen : flight of raptors, pelicans meals or giraffes care…



Wildlife is on…

Hunting dogs like to run around : a choreography of the French tricolor (name of the dogs), used for hounds.



You can also take a guided tour (fee) of the castle



which is listed since 1959. and admire the French gardens of the park.

At the end of the trail, a playground with inflatables (slides ...)… a delight for children.

A little walk on a corn maze and that ‘s the end of a busy day.

No surprise but no disappointment either. Around € 15 for adults and 12 for children.
Open all year.



Shows and events are only held during the summer. You can picnic there.

Read it in French : Visite avec des enfants du zoo et du parc du chateau de La Bourbansais (Ille et Vilaine, Bretagne)

You want to try recipes with walnuts, well learn too about the tree that produce them. It is a nice one…



The walnut tree comes from Asia and is known in France for several centuries already (800). Charlemagne wanted it throughout his empire and thanks to him it was spread out in Europe ...

The walnut is native to warmer lands (Asia), he does not like the cold weather. When it blooms in April or May, the flowers do not like frost ... Otherwise the precious harvest of nuts may be compromised ...

Nut is very nutritious: 60% fat for 20% protein. They were advised for women seeking fertility ...

The walnut tree has a nasty reputation ... We strongly advise against taking a nap under its shadow ... not for fear of receiving nuts during your sweet rest, but rather because under it, vegetation grows with a lot of difficulty. The grass is sparse and the flowers wither. If you want to plant with a walnut tree around, do it but at a certain distance.

The tree can life 70 years to … 300. It produces walnuts with 20-25 years… It is 20 to 25 meters high.

In the Middle Ages, people used the walnut oil for massage to relieve pain of rheumatism or arthritis: 4 to 5 kg of nuts per 1 liter of oil ... Peeling and peeling again and again.

Walnut oil is very good, very tasty ... but it turns rancid very fast.

For longer storage, it must be stored in a cool place, away from light in a dark bottle. It helps by adding a few grains of salt in the bottle.

Use it as seasoning, as salad dressings, it is excellent, it can not stand to be heated.

The walnut wood is highly prized by carpenters. The quality of its wood and itsdark color are valued for furniture, table, desk, library ...

The walnut is a producer of nut husks : the green envelope that protects the fruit. The liquid it emits is used to produce inks for dark stained wood.

Inside the husk, the shell hides the edible part : the kernels.

The nuts have interesting nutritional benefits : they provide good essential fatty acids (the so-called omega 3 and omega 6), vitamins and minerals (especially magnesium).

Want to try my recipe : mashed potatoes and nuts in the oven.

Read it in French : Le noyer un arbre remarquable à planter dans le jardin

5 a day they say…

Ok, but when tomatoes have no taste, when peaches are unripe and when strawberries are time bombs, what should we eat ?
Well, choose the breton strawberries… the one produced at Plougastel, called gariguettes. They are slim, very long and really tasty…



Plougastel has a long reputation as a land of strawberries. Again, it is due to a mild climate ... as often for the cultivation of vegetables in Britanny. Sea regulates the temperature (it is never really hot and it does not freeze). The season lasts from April to November.

The strawberry fields are located in the countryside of Plougastel Daoulas. During the last century, strawberries were protected by small stone walls. Today the plants are hidden in tunnels or in greenhouses.

Let’s go back to the 19th century. Strawberries are grown, replacing the cultivation of flax which was then the wealth of Brittany. Flax was used to make canvas (called daoulas) that were exported around the world. But the international competition (American and British) is too strong, breton producers have to evolve. They began to grow strawberries on the peninsula to replace the flax.

At that time, 25% of the French production was breton. And soon they tried to exporte their fruits to... England. Or Paris when the railway connects Brest to the French capital in 1865.

Since then, the strawberry culture oscillates between periods of plenty and bad times....Competition is fierce on the large international market of strawberries.

Have you ever eaten a gariguette. It is not the cheapest one but it is full of smells and extremely tasty. They are picked by hand, when they are ripe enough and delicately layed down on trays. No need to add sugar, as it is harvested at maturity.

And then if you are interested in sustainable development, they don’t come from far, far away…

If you buy organic strawberries, have you noticed the one with strange shapes: these are flowers that have not been properly gathered… they grow "distorted" ...



Want to know more about the history of the strawberries… In Europe and in our countries, the wild strawberry has been around forever (at least during the Roman times). Amédée François Frezier (Frezier in French even if it is not spelled the same, means strawberry plant), a French explorer, brought back from South America a variety of strawberries that are the ancestors of those of Plougastel.

Visit a strawberry farm at Plougastel. You'll learn much more!

Then, what do you think ? Are the strawberry a Breton tradition? A gastronomic heritage? A speciality of Brittany? Please vote !



Read it in French : Les fraises de Plougastel : tourisme ou patrimoine gastronomique

Milky oyster's lovers should hurry... They' ll soon be a testimony of the past... Why ? Ask the oyster's farmers of Cancale, your usual market or even your favorite fishmonger online what you're eating !
Triploid oysters (also called wiht the poetic name of 4 seasons oysters), are a new variety of this mollusc. An singular oyster, born in the French laboratories (IFREMER) at the end of the 20th century... and almost invisible as it is written nowhere that you're in front of it ...

Explanation

Oysters have been a traditional meal for millenniums... Already during prehistoric times, coastal men enjoyed them ... (They were wild at the time). Romans settled in Britain loved them...10 centuries later, French King Louis XIV was fond of it.
Soon the overconsumption became a real problem... Fear of the disappearance of natural beds of oysters ... Already in the 19th century, rules were allowing the harvesting only during defined periods of the year (September to April). Then the idea of breeding... Napoleon III asked Victor Coste to study the oyster farms in Italy. He created the modern oyster farming. Today wild oysters are very rare. And in addition, they're transformed ...

The original species and the modified ones

Oysters are flat or hollow ... and... fragile ... The Belon oyster in Brittany is known abroad. Even though it has been threatened by the Portuguese oyster, rejected by a ship in the Gironde. It will be bred until an epizootic (epidemic) almost decimated it. Since then, the Japanese oyster did replace the hollow ... until the next illness ...
That's in real life...
In the lab, since the late 20th century, there is a new variety... the four seasons oyster ... Be careful not to confuse everything ... They are not Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) (but a story of chromosome!). Researchers made them sterile...
These so-called triploid oysters have two advantages: as they are sterile, they do not spawn, need less energy and therefore grow faster. You need almost 3 years to get an adult oyster, those ones need one year to be sold...
The second advantage is as they are sterile and they're never milky (too bad for my mom who loves them like that!).
If, you know the months with the letter R and the months without the letter R (May-August when most oysters are not eaten).... Well, this period corresponds to the breeding season, summer ... and during this period less oysters are eaten. With those ones, you can taste them throughout the year.

Defenders of the four seasons oysters will say that the fear of a new epidemic was the reason of this new variety. Sûrement... That' right, the Portuguese oyster have been destroyed in the 70's. And if the Japanese Oyster has the same problem... What will happen ?

And the consumer ...

As usual, we forgot to ask his opinion! Too bad for him! But never mind, research has done the same thing for the mussels! Never change a winning team!
And worse, we do not know what we eat ! No mention tell the customer if they're triploid. 15,000 to 20,000 tonnes are produced every year, 10 to 15% of the production is triploid.... (as it is explained in an article of the French newspaper Libération ).

Next time you'll buy oysters, you'll ask ? Does anyone know if they are still aphrodisiac, these new oysters ?

Read this article in French : Huitres triploides : ogm ou pas

5 good reasons to go on this island!

Getting away
One day walk and break
It can be visisted most of the year (late March to All)
Enjoy flowers and sea spray !
And finally, greet a seal!

After 15 minutes of ferry through currents and reefs, you arrive on Kernoc’h harbor.
As 600 inhabitants live on the island, there are ferries quite often to get there : out of season several times a day and in season every 30 minutes. Whenever you want to go there… it is possible… till 7 PM.



The island measures just over 3 kms long at high tide. Because at low tide ...the island is much bigger… One day walk, you have plenty of time to discover Batz.



And as each side is different, it is very pleasant to walk around it. One side, you’ll discover Roscoff and the mainland, opposite the ocean.

And the shore of the island itself is very various : rocks, dunes, shingle or sandy beaches of extremely fine almost white ... It's not all, depending on the tides, the landscape changes again and again.



And despite all, the island does not live only on tourism ... With its nearly 600 inhabitants, it also lives on agriculture ... And therefore has a real life ... It is the island of flowers, they grow everywhere thanks to the mild climate : flowers of the fields (wild cloves, wild gorse, poppies, camomile ...),



dunes flowers (eryngium…), or common garden flowers (hydrangeas, geraniums, ...) or even exotic flowers that have spread out from the exotic garden.
At the end of last century, Georges Delaselle installed a colonial garden on the east of the island. He grew tropical plants (the climate is very mild in Batz) ... After decolonization, the garden changed its name for the name of its founder.

The park has been abandoned for several years but since 1986 it has been rehabilitated, hosts tropical plants and trees. Cedar, eucalyptus and dracena (palms of New Zealand), agave (cactus from Mexico used to make Mezcal) echium are all around the island.



If you walk to the ocean side, you will find beautiful white sandy beaches ... you’ll disturb birds or even sometimes … seals ... Further, on the far west there is a chaos of stones called : Toul ar Sarpant, the hole of the snake. That side hosts also a swamp with its fauna and flora.



The last facet of the island is the sheltered side, which faces Roscoff. And there anjoy a crepe or a drink after your nice walk…

On your bike, with your foot, enjoy the island.

Read it in French : Randonnée sur une des îles du Ponant : l'île de Batz