April 15th, the feast of St. Patern! That's an original French name ! I don't know anyone who's name is Patern. Anyhow it is a famous breton saint who is connected to rain and springtime...
Paterne or Paterne (and not Pattern !) is the patron saint of a French city in Brittany Vannes, where he was the first bishop. He was revered during the Middle Ages, when Vannes was one of the stages of the pilgrimage, the Tro Breizh, which linked the 7 bishoprics of Small Britain (Dol, Quimper, Saint Brieuc, Saint Malo, Saint Pol de Leon, Treguier and Vannes). The pilgrims had to do it once in their life.

Patern is one of the 7 founding saints of Brittany, a native from Wales. He emigrated to Armorica during the 5th C. Like many Great Britons who had fled the big island to take refuge in the small peninsula.
This religious man was not really welcomed by the local people (he is a foreigner but a Breton yet!). Nonetheless he is the first bishop of Vannes (c. 465). Quickly forced to resign, he moved to a hermitage in the region and he died forgotten in April 15 in 475.

Unloved, he should have been abandonned when a century later, the city of Vannes suffered a severe drought. The parishioners thought they were punished for abusing their bishop and they began to pray. As the rain returned, they built a church in his name... The tomb of Patern is not in the cathedral of Vannes, but in this little church (2 Place Saint Catherine Vannes).
Here is the story of Patern, whose fame continues... His statue is in the Holy Valley of Carnoet (but I forgot to photograph it). Signed by Olivier Leveque, it stands with the other contemporary sculptures of the founding saints of Brittany. You don't like this male name of Patern. Go and read my others articles on Corentin, Tugdual, Malo... or check a guide on Celtic names and their original meanings ...

Read this article in French : Un prénom breton original : Patern le saint fondateur de l'évéché de Vannes

Visiting the Valley of the Saints... I have desires of hagiography (stories of holy names).... to understand the meaning and origins of the Breton first names...

I'll begin with Tugdual... a very famous saint here in Brittany... and an original male name...

This young man was not born in Brittany but in what is now called Wales. He, like many other Great Britons, crossed the Channel to Armorica to evangelize it.
So... he was Welsh, born in the late 5th century (about 490) and was educated in a monastery. Nothing very original for this time!
At 25, he emigrated with his family and other religious compatriots in Leon (Northern Brittany), where he founded a monastery and then a hermitage. Soon the two schools are very successful and lots of believers arrived.
He soon performed miracles, conversions increased... The Tréguier Monastery wanted him as a bishop in 532. Converted princes thanked him giving lands to found other religious establishments. In short, everything is fine.

Tugdual went to Rome in 548 and the legend says that Rome was burying the pope.
After the funeral, while the clergy gathered to elect the new pontiff, a white dove, symbol of the purity of the soul, rests on Tugdual head. And that's how his life switched : he was elected Pope Leo V.
The end of his pontificate is announced by a new sign two years later when a white horse fly him back to Tréguier.

The sculptor Francois Breton has carved him with a dove... It should be on the Valley of Saints in Central Brittany (France). (it is supposed to be there but it was not there during my visit, I have no photos to show you! Next time !)
He died in Tréguier November 30 with 73 years (if I counted right) in 563.
Celebrated this day, his name has many variants: Tual, Tudal, Tugal, Tudwal, Tuzval, Tutuarn, Pabu or Papu in Breton.

In summary, if Tugdual is the first name of your dreams for your boy, that's what you must remember: Saint Tugdual is one of the seven founding saints of Brittany. It was the first bishop of Tréguier. He is often associated with a dove... remember, Brittany had its first and only pope thanks to him and the dove.
Your son's Nobel Peace .... Not bad?

Read it in French : Saint Tugdual et sa colombe : évèque de Tréguier et unique pape breton

The best season to eat this vegetable runs from May to November, for the one produced next to your door, in small Britain.



To choose a beautiful artichoke, a Breton one, le camus de Bretagne (green globe for US)… You have to recognize it : it is not the same as the mediterranean one, it is bigger (2 to 3 heads for a kilo). Then for a good one, you need to check the stem : it has to be fresh (not dry).

To cook it : you need to use two different boiling water

The first one is to wash it (the acidity will go), boil for 5 minutes and don’t cover. The water will be green.
The second is to cook it. Depending on the size of the vegetable, cook betwenn 15 to 30 minutes in boiling water. To know if it is cooked, remove a leaf and if it is tender, you can strain and wait till it is cold.

Recipe for french dressing :
3 tablespoons oil
1 of vinegar
a large teaspoon of french mustard.

Eat the leaves one by one dipped in french dressing. Savour the heart once you removed the inedible “choke”. You can also peel the stem and eat the tender center.
Be careful you have once cooked to eat it during the day because the artichoke oxidizes quickly.

Read it in French : Recette de l'artichaut à la vinaigrette

Christmas in France is like a gastronomy fair. During a week or so, you’re eating from one place to another. And everyone is trying to do his best. The most typical is turkey with chestnuts and as a dessert we call it la buche (it is an icecream looking like a log)... May be you’re doing the same across the Channel…
Anyway, for some years, another poultry is savoured during those times of plenty : the capon. And when you know that France is the first producer of poultry in Europe and that Brittany produces 40% of the French production... Here I am !!! In Janzé, a small town 20 km south from Rennes where the production of the poultry (poulet de janzé) is famous for his quality ...



What is a capon ?
It is a chicken that eats corn (75%) and enjoys walking on 2 square meters land.
Its also a cock



whose reproductive organs and comb have been removed when it was 6 weeks old. It grows outside



for 6 months (3 months only for the chicken) and spends the last 3 weeks of his life locked eating unskimmed milk. When it is ready to be eaten, it weights 4 to 4,5 kgs (2 kg for an adult chicken).

A traditional caponization ?
Roman learned caponization from other countries and used it in Rom to stop the cockcrow. In Brittany, capons were breeded during the XIXth century but it stopped at the beginning of the XXth century because of the high mortality rate of the castrated cocks. The production began again in 1988.
The raising of capons begin in July to be ready for Christmas time. The castration is a delicate operation and does not always succeed. If the capon begins to crow, forget the unskimmed milk... Because of castration, the cock doesn’t have male hormones and and its metabolism changes. Its flesh is tender.



The poulet de Janzé is a grouping of breeders from the region of Janzé. They breed a high quality poultry (Label Rouge). It follows several standards of quality : they have to eat 75% of corn, they have to be raised outside, they have to live x days and have to be killed in good conditions (no stress !!!)…

If you want to go to the capron fair



– the fair exists since 2002- it always takes place in Janzé, the week end before Chrismas. You have a market of several poultry and you can meet chefs that are giving their recipes…

Caprons are sold from the 15th of December to the 15th of January…

Cock-a-doodle-do

Read it in French : le chapon de Janzé à la foire du dernier week end avant Noel : entre terroir et tradition

Some weeks ago, I did some nice elder flowers fritters, and now that the berries are being eaten by birds, I ‘m hurrying to make a nice jelly. As it is my first elderberry jelly, I tried to find on internet the best recipe. Well, none appealed to me… So after some tries, I’ll tell you what for me is the best.

Ingredients :
berries, (for 3 pots of 300 g of jam, you need a full bag of berries)
sugar,
an orange if you have one (recipes usually use lemon but orange is good)
and some water.

Harvest your wild berries in the countryside, you’ll find them everywhere. Choose the ripest ones, full of water and not the one already tasted by birds that are no more watery. Because the secret for a good jam is liquid.



Pick berries off the stalks, keep the black ones, and weight them before doing anything else. Because thanks to its weight, you ‘ll have to add one third of sugar later one.
Once you weighted them, put the orange juice into a pan with the water and let it boil for some minutes. It smells really strange and not nice but go on. Crush them. Then use a food mill to remove the seeds. I first tried with the berries and seeds, it is inedible.

Once you have the sauce, put it into a saucepan, add sugar (one third because once you removed the seeds and skin, you have not a lot left) and mix.
The best is to wait the next day to cook it. Boil it then for some minutes. Your jam is ready when using a teaspoon, the jelly is covering your teaspoon and dropping very slowly. The drop must almost stay on your teaspoon.
Pour the boiling jam into pots and seal them and let them cool down upside down. And again store them upside down till eating. The pots can be kept for a long time (a year or so).



Be careful with the berries : never eat them raw, they are toxic, as are the leaves, the roots and the bark.

Read it in French : Recette de confiture aux baies de sureau

Cherry season ... goes by so quickly. The white flowers become beautiful red berries. ... And if you're lucky enough eat lots of cherries ... please keep the stones ! They 'll be useful soon...

These small seeds are not only used to grow cherry trees, they are used for many other things ... Such as...hot-water bottles.

Let me explain, one of my friends gave me a pretty hot-water bottle in cherry pits, homemade ... And it can be used warm or cold, it is useful when your body is aching !
Just put in the oven a few minutes and it is ready to be used on your painfull neck ! !
Or cold to relieve tooth pain.
Or the bumps and bruises of your children.



To realize one hot-water bottle, you just need :

Just get your cherry pits (all species of cherry trees are accepted: wild cherries, sour cherries, red cherries, yellow cherries, cherries macerated even for years in brandy). Scald a few minutes (it cleans and kills insects if necessary). Dry in the sun.
Buy a cloth that resists the oven (all good stores specialized in sewing and textiles will tell you what material to choose). Mine is in cotton.
Then think of the framework for your water bottle : you can do what ever you want ...
Cut your framework, sew it in reverse, let just a small hole to fill the seeds (you need 400 grams of stones). Finish sewing. Your water bottle is ready. A cotton one, no plastic or rubber!

Uses

Hot possibility : 10 minutes in the oven around 100 degrees. The hot-water bottle retains heat very long and it fits perfectly on your tummy ache, your sprain, your pain stiff neck or any place that makes you suffer ...

Cold version: a few minutes in your freezer and extractions of molars and wisdom teeth are forgotten.



Read this article in French : Faire sa bouillotte en noyaux de cerises

Wedding anniversary, 40’s birthday, your lover is 50 and you want it to be unforgettable... Birthdays are an occasion for giving an original present : a fly over Brittany just for yourself !!!. My friend did it in September, it is just great...




They (my friend and his lover) did it at Dinard Airport, but you can do it in many breton aerodromes. Pilots do it for nothing because they need to fly n hours to keep their licence to go on flying. They fly you around for your pleasure and for their licence. Dinard Airport has for exemple four pilots doing it.

At Dinard Airport, the pilot was waiting for them. They went into the plane




– you can be three plus the pilot – and they began their take off. Once in the air they had to choose to fly East or West, that is Cap Fréhel (east) or Mont Saint Michel (west).
My friends wanted to fly over the coast, they choosed west, they flew over the sea and Chausey island. The pilot explained to them the landscape while driving his plane as if it were a car .
They saw Cancale and its oysters beds.



Saint Malo



and they finished the trip with Rance estuary.



The weather was really nice, it was wonderful…

And what do you do if it rains !!! Don’t worry and be happy !!! It is known worldwide that Brittany like Great Britain has an humid climate. So, the pilots look at the weather forecast and call you when it is no good to fly…
You’re conquered ???? Well, the fly lasts half an hour and it costs 100 €.
Good trip.



Read it in French : la Bretagne vue d'avion : rendez vous à l'aéroport de Dinard

Where do oysters live?

Oysters are bred everywhere in the world. And of course in France, in Brittany the oysters of Belon for example... The mollusks like sheltered areas ... The sea has to be salty, but not too much (there is often a nearby river). Some live on the ocean floor and never watch the sky without water. And others are living on the shore and are lulled by the tides.
Different species grow in the West of France ( they are very often born elsewhere but then raised in Small Britain) ...

How to choose a good oyster ?

In France, oysters have names and numbers (from 0 to 5 for the hollow and up to 6 for the flat) ... which correspond to their sizes ... in reverse order ...
The higher the number, the smaller the mollusk ... For example, oysters number 2 are bigger than the number 5. An other example : an oyster number 0 is about 150 g, a number 5 between 30 and 45 g.



How to store oysters ? How to be sure they're alive and therefore good to eat ?

An oyster may be consumed up to 10 days after leaving the water if it has been maintained properly ... in the seaweed ... To be sure it is still alive, open the oysters and wait till it rejects the first juice, discard it and eat it when it has produced its second water (if it does not produce, it is not a good sign, it is probably dead !).

Open them

With a oyster knife ... This knife has a special form adapted to open oysters. Use also gloves, cloth or this little plastic handle ...



Composition and preparation

The oyster is full of good things: vitamins, minerals and especially of iodine ... You drink the sea when you eat it.... It is low in calories (75 calories per 100g)... And then it is an aphrodisiac ...
If they eat only plankton, you can enjoy it raw or cooked. With lemon or a shallot vinegar or bread and butter.

Life of a hermaphroditic snail

If oysters are aphrodisiac, it may be due to their specificity: they change sex several times in their lives (they are hermaphrodites). With 2 years old, they release between 20 and 100 million eggs and more sperm. It happens in summer when the oysters are milky (in full breeding season).
They are quite edible during this period even though the French proverb reminds you : ne pas manger les huitres dans les mois en R not to eat them in months with the letter R.
Only 10% of billions of larvae will become adults. After a few weeks, begins the work of the oysterman: the spat (the eggs) have to find a place to settle : oyster shells, tiles, plastic tube or rope ... Oysters will be cultivated and the oysters' bed will be harvested after some years.As adults, they stay in maturing basins where they expel mud and sand. Their eating quality, size and color will also change. They are then washed and graded, packed in baskets before ending up on your plate.

Pearl oysters

If you're an oyster's lover, you have surely found one day a pearl in the shell (layers of nacre covers the object : sand or parasite). All oysters can produce pearls, but the production is often related to specialists in warm countries. The work of a professional is necessary to get a nice roundness.

Read this article in French : Les huitres : les choisir, les conserver et les ouvrir

Even if China and India share 70% of the world production, three-quarters of the French production of cauliflower are grown in the North West of France, on the breton coast ... If you arrive with the ferry at Roscoff, you'll see fields of cauliflowers everywhere... Prince de Bretagne the main supplier of vegetables of the region...



Cauliflower belongs to the very, very, large cabbage family ... that have so many different colors, shapes and even sizes. Cabbage season never stops... all year long...

Origins
Asia Minor. Cabbage is a very old food already eaten by prehistoric people ... Cauliflower disappears however in Europe after the Roman time and reappeared in Italy in the late Middle Ages. In France, it is cultivated again in the 17th C. In England, a bit earlier...

Vitamins and co
This vegetable plant has many advantages: rich in vitamin C (good for healthy bones, cartilage, teeth and gums ... It also protects against infections, promotes the absorption of iron content in plants and accelerates healing. ) It was good for sailors wishing to fight against scurvy (No fresh food on boats for days...a lack of vitamin C makes you loose your teeth!).
Studies say that cauliflower is also appreciated against cancers (lung, ovary and kidney). And good for pregnant women (contents folate (vitamin B9 used for the growth and development of the fetus ...).
It is a low calorie vegetable (high content of water: 20 calories per 100 grams).

Culture and Consumption
It is an annual plant. Thanks to the mild climate of the region of Roscoff, we can eat them September to January.

How to choose a cauliflower
A fresh one will have still green water-soaked leaves and a white heart...
But ... very often, unfortunatly, the cauliflower arriving in our plates has done a long journey before ending in a saucepan of boiling water... Leaves are all dried, the white is often spotted (these are signs of decay).
However ... It is a very good food that I recommend as a dipping appetizer

Italian raw cauliflower recipe in spicy sauce

Ingredients
a cauliflower 800 g
Chopped parsley
Anchovies thinly cut
Juice of half a lemon
100g butter
Salt

For this recipe, the ideal is to have a cauliflower extremely fresh, white, with no trace of passing time ...
Remove leaves, divide the clumps of cabbage and soak in salted water.
In a saucepan, melt butter, add anchovies that you've previously cut into thin slices and parsley. After a few minutes, remove from heat.
Drain the cauliflower florets and arrange in a dish, pour sauce and lemon juice.
Serve as appetizer ...

Read this article in French : Le chou-fleur de Bretagne

You love flowers, you love trees, parks and gardens. Le Parc Floral de Haute Bretagne, I visited in springtime will please you. Even if its name is not very poetic, the place is nicer.



Located about ten miles from Fougères, the park created in the late nineteenth century welcomes you from March to November (Parc Floral de Haute Bretagne, La Foletiere - The Châtellier 35133 Tel: 02 99 95 48 32).

What I like in this tour is that the landscape changes all the time. Depending on the season you'll visit a garden with different colors, a different garden ..

- Spring corresponds to the blooming of camellias, daffodils... End of May, rhododendron's lovers will enjoy the 800 feet planted in the garden.
In summer, roses, hydrangeas, lilies and lotus color the park.
In the fall, asters and cyclamen and liquidambars finish the season.
Gardeners, choose your month!. Or take a subscription to come when you want.

Of course, many other varieties of plants, flowers and trees (whose name I don't know) grow in this garden and delight visitors.



In an hour and a half, you'll cross 25 acres of green paradise ... I went through bamboo forests (all colors), avenues of pink or rubbed magnolias ...
20 gardens are to discover and each has its specialty: gentian or camellias ... And everyone will find his pleasure.



Children (3 ½ years and 4) are a bit small to enjoy the flowers... They liked getting lost in the maze. Or loved to test the balance of the suspension bridge. It was too early in the season to feed the carnivorous plants ... Too bad.

A greenhouse offers to buy seedlings of plants that you have seen ...
The park also rent places for business or for weddings ... ... Or rooms in the Manor of Foletiere ... 5 nice rooms named... Renoir, Degas, Monet ...



... Everything is on their website ... And if you book early, it's cheaper ...



Read this article in French : visiter un jardin en Bretagne : le parc floral et ses chambres d'hôtes

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