That old chestnut

Châtaignes dans les bois
Se fendent, se fendent,
Châtaignes dans les bois
Se fendent sous nos pas
*
Chestnuts in the woods
Split open, split open,
Chestnuts in the woods
Split open at our feet

Words from a French song


I am not going to crack any lame jokes about French nuts in this post, although there is certainly plenty of potential. Instead, I am going to talk about the chestnut, without which Noël just wouldn't be Noël and it would be a sad and empty day for festive turkeys everywhere.

In French, there are two words for chestnuts: châtaigne and marron. The distinction is recent and merely culinary. They come from the same tree but the fruit is called a châtaigne when there are two or three nuts in a burr (the prickly shell), and a marron when there is only one. I have no idea why this is important but apparently it is.

Up until the 19th century, chestnuts were a major source of nourishment for people and animals alike. In fact, in some regions of France, the tree was known as the 'bread tree' because the fruit - and the wood - were so valuable. Although chestnut trees had been around for thousands of years, the first cultivated chestnut groves, or châtaigneraies, were only established in France during the Middle Ages. The tree thrives in warmer climates so most were planted south of the Loire, particularly in the Cévennes region, where chestnuts are still a speciality. The fruit was eaten roasted, made into jam or cooked with milk and vanilla to make a soup called bajana and it was also pounded into flour and used for making bread. At one time, it was even used as a trading currency and dowry offering - so, happy indeed was the soul with a few chestnuts rolling around in his pocket.

Sometime during the 19th century, the chestnut trees were afflicted with ink disease caused by a fungus, which reduced their number considerably. Gradually, the chestnut's popularity waned as people became more prosperous and could afford to vary their diet. There was a brief return to glory in wartime when the chestnut saved the population from famine, but the mass rural exodus in the 1950s sealed the fate of the humble chestnut tree forever. Once a vital necessity, it became little more than something to stand under.

Chestnuts are still gathered in the traditional manner - that is, picked up from the ground. There isn't any other way to do it really, as they are only ripe when they fall off the trees, which happens at the end of October. The use of nets makes the job easier and good chestnut pickers can gather up to four hundred kilos a day. In the past, they were paid in chestnuts and today, they would argue, they're paid peanuts (but that's another story).

Because of their high water content, chestnuts don't keep well so need to be preserved and the best way is by drying them. In some regions, this is still done in a clède, a small two-storey building with a slow-burning fire on the ground floor that dries the chestnuts spread out on the large rack that forms the first floor. After about a month, the chestnuts are skinned and are ready to be ground into flour or packed into tins and jars. In the past, the skinning process was carried out by men who stamped through the piles of chestnuts in boots studded with long nails. Today, they use a slightly more sophisticated method involving machines.

However, France has to import two-thirds of the total chestnuts they consume, mostly from Asia. And they are very fond of them. From October onwards, the smell of roasting chestnuts wafts through the city streets from chestnut sellers' stalls - although three euros for a small cone is a bit steep for something you can pick up yourself in the local park. It is, of course, unthinkable for the French to stuff their turkeys with anything other than chestnuts (my dehydrated sage-and-onion mix has never met with great success here) and those famous marrons glacés - candied chestnuts - are as essential to their Christmas as a tin of Quality Street is to ours.

A favourite topping for crêpes or toast is crème de marrons, a thick and sweet chestnut spread flavoured with vanilla. The best-known brand is sold in retro brown and white tins evoking the distant childhoods of a bygone era…it is the ultimate comfort food although condensed milk comes a very close second. You can also buy chestnut honey - and I have done, so I can warn you that the smell is atrocious and reminiscent of fresh cowpat but the taste is… unusual, perhaps, but not bad. As for bread made from chestnut flour, I bought some the other day from a health food shop. It was a small and extremely expensive loaf and I think I'll be giving it a miss in the future. To be perfectly honest, it didn't go very well with my Marmite…

A Stitch in Time

Er...I'm writing a children's book (cringe) and have uploaded the first twelve chapters on Harper and Collins' "electronic slush-pile" site: authonomy.com.

This is the bravest thing I've done since driving over the Monts de L'Ardeche in a windowless car, in a thunderstorm.

So if any of you have a little time to spare, why not take a peek and tell me what you think? Any comments (on the authonomy site please - it will drag me out of total obscurity) would be welcome - even if you think the book's rubbish (but I warn you, I'm sensitive and I may just plunge into deep depression and never speak to you again).

The book's called A Stitch in Time and you can find it here

Trumpet Blow over...

Merci beaucoup

On the pavement

There is a wonderful cartoon by the French cartoonist, Sempé, which depicts a man standing at one end of a café-lined boulevard with an anxious expression on his face. In the next frame, he has emerged at the far end of the boulevard, having slipped around the backstreets and avoided having to walk past all those people-watchers. Believe me, I know how he feels - it takes great courage. In fact, I recently tripped and fell headlong on the pavement in front of a dozen or so cappuccino-sipping café customers. I do believe they were mildly amused – after all, it’s not every day you see a plump middle-aged English woman perform a perfect flying tackle on a lamppost.

Taverns have been around forever but cafés were opened specifically to sell coffee. The first coffee house was opened in Constantinople in the fifteenth century. When the new drink arrived in France in the seventeenth century it quickly became fashionable and in 1686, the first French coffee house – or café – was opened in Paris. It was called the Procope after its Sicilian owner and soon became a meeting-place for writers, artists and philosophers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Balzac and Victor Hugo. Diderot’s encyclopaedia was conceived here and the French Revolution was planned and plotted. Initially, women weren’t allowed in these dens of iniquity, unless it was to serve. A second café – La Table Ronde - was opened in Grenoble in 1739. Situated opposite the law courts and the theatre, it has had its fair share of famous clientele. Sarah Bernardt drank here as did Fernandel and a host of other actors and singers.

There is a café for everyone in France. If you are of a philosophical bent – like Sartre, for example, who spent most of his life in the Café de Flore in Paris – then the café-philo is for you. You don’t have to drink much but you do have to be able to spout a load of old rot about the meaning – or not – of life. My daughter went once and came back either drunk or extremely bewildered, I’m not sure – in any case, she was completely incoherent. She thought so…therefore, she was…or something like that.

Then there is the café littéraire where completely sober people stand up and recite poetry or prose and then talk about it over a drink or two. To be honest, I’ve never been to one of these – they remind me too much of Eng Lit lectures at University and when I go to a café, I want a drink and a good laugh – not an in-depth discussion of limping iambics.

Another recent phenomenon was the chicha-café. They didn’t last long because of the anti-smoking law which defeated the object somewhat. They had names like Oasis and Le bar à Chicha and had exotic Arabian nights type of décor. Apparently (the information comes from my daughter, who is – as you may have guessed – a regular café-goer) one would lounge around on silken cushions, drinking mint tea and taking regular puffs of fruit- flavoured tobacco from a hookah pipe. In fact, my daughter’s birthday present to me a couple of years ago was an evening out in a chicha bar but I was afraid I would cramp her style – and I wasn’t completely sure I would be able to heave myself up off those cushions at the end of the evening, my knees being what they are. I settled for bath salts instead.

The Irish pub has become very fashionable in past years. Every French town has a Shannon Pub or a Shamrock Bar. These places are usually furnished with wooden benches and trestle tables while the walls are hung with anything remotely Celtic: Guinness adverts, pictures of Donegal, leprechauns, Aran jumpers etc. For some reason, Saint Patrick’s night is very popular in France and most Irish pubs will be holding events such as céilidhs to the accompaniment of fiddles, flutes and bearded bard. Sometimes they get it wrong, of course, and I personally know of two ‘Irish’ pubs called The Loch Ness and The Queen’s Head. Kilts, Celts – it’s all the same to them…

At a café-theatre, you can see up-and-coming stars perform. I saw Charlelie Couture in Périgueux nearly thirty years ago and he is now a household name in France. Many of today’s stars began their career in café-théâtres.

Then of course, there is the café de la gare: the station café. Seedy, moody, depressing plastic-table-topped-Gauloises-smoke-filled meeting places…the stuff obscure French films are made of, quoi…unfortunately, they are rapidly being replaced by cheap and cheerful American fast-food outlets- not half as romantic, I’m afraid, but just as seedy. And of course if you lit up a Gauloise you’d be thrown out.

The French bistrot is just a café with a name of obscure origin. A popular explanation is that it comes from the Russian word for ‘quick’ and originates from the period of the Russian occupation of Paris. However, this is much disputed and the true meaning remains a mystery. Who cares anyway? It’s just a café with a fancy name...

Bars – as far as I can gather – differ from cafés in that they cater for locals who just want a shot of pastis and a read of the newspaper – and perhaps a bet on the horses. The bar-PMU doubles as a betting shop and if you accidentally wander into one of these establishments you will be met with cold stares and frosty silence. There will always be a television in the corner broadcasting a horse race and a burly barman who will pointedly ignore you.

In all these places, you can sit at a table – either inside or out – and expect a waiter to come and serve you. This is the theory. In practice, you sometimes have to do a lot of coughing and hand-raising before you manage to catch his eye. And don’t be fooled: French waiters have phenomenal memories. You can give the most complicated order and they will have no trouble at all remembering it along with three or four other orders from other tables. They will also have no trouble at all remembering whether or not you gave a tip the first time – and treat you accordingly on your next visit. You have been warned…

Camp sights: Part Three

On the beach...

The Bay of Pampelonne is 5 kilometres of sand divided up into public and private beaches. It was also one of the sites for the Provence Landing of 1944 and was soon to be the site for the lesser-known Baconnier landing of 2008.

They told us at the campsite that the beach was just down the dirt track that wound through vineyards and bamboo plantations. It sounded terribly exotic so we set off, me in my glamorous new silver flip-flops and the girls in their micro-shorts and tiny strappy tops.

It was further than we imagined and at one point we had to cross a busy main road. We stood hesitantly on the verge while young men in sleek sports cars sped past, flashing their lights and sounding their horns as my girls giggled prettily. Well, they are gorgeous. I was quite flattered when someone beeped their horn at me - until I realized it was because I was in the middle of the road and in danger of being run over…

When we finally stumbled onto the mythical beach, my feet were bleeding profusely and I had to take off my flip-flops. Walking barefoot on the sand was like walking on shredded Brillo pads but it was either that or lose one of my toes. By this time, the girls had decided I was cramping their style and had gone on ahead. But why were they staring at the ground? Had they suddenly lost confidence in the face of all this glamour?



Then I realized. This was a nudist beach. My girls are not used to seeing so much flesh and so many dangly bits on show, especially when the flesh was a little – how shall I put it? – past its prime. Still, it made me feel better about my own floppy bits.

In fact, a few days later, I came to this beach on my own for a bit of topless sunbathing. At least no-one would bat an eyelid at a pasty plump English woman baring her boobs. Now, my boobs are a little on the large side – let’s say that anyone sitting next to me wouldn’t need a parasol – but surely they wouldn’t draw attention here, would they?

Wrong. After a few minutes of blissful sunbathing, a shadow fell across my body. Then I heard a series of hoarse grunts and a man’s voice murmuring “Oh là là. Oh là là. Oh LA LA!” I immediately hitched up my bathing costume and rolled over. The Pervert of Pampelonne grinned lasciviously and walked away while I opened my book and vowed never ever to go topless again.

Still, I’ve got nice tanned ankles now. Pity I can’t wear the flip-flops…

Camp sights: Part Two

The English Abroad.

A play in one act.

St Tropez: a mediaeval port that has lost none of its charm; its narrow streets wind lazily beneath the sun as azure waves lap softly against the ancient shore.

Gigi is strolling along the seafront when a lion-like roar (in a broad northern English accent) rips through the air. A large, purple-faced man is gesticulating menacingly in the middle of the street:

Angry tourist: Police! Get me the police! Anyone 'ere know where the police station is? Shut up you. I want the police NOW!

Gigi: Ahem - can I help perhaps?

Angry Tourist: Yeah, I ordered mools mariner, right? And when it come it were too salty an' there were no wine, no cream, nothing so I said…

AT’s Wife: We've only bin 'ere two days.

AT: So I said I’m not 'aving this rubbish take it away. I’ll 'ave what 'e's 'aving cos the bloke next to me were eating a pizza.

AT’s wife: Disgusting it is.

A French waiter, who has been standing calmly by and is now on the phone to the police, smiles tightly at Gigi.

Waiter: Ils sont partis sans payer.

AT: An' the waitress brought the pizza, right, and she slapped it on table an' said "There is no wine with this meal."

Waiter: Et il l’a traitée de pute.

AT’s wife: This is disgusting, this is. We've only bin 'ere two days.

Gigi: Er – the waiter said you left without paying and you insulted the waitress…

AT: No I never, stupid cow. POLICE! Where's the police? I want the police.

Waiter: No problem, monsieur– you are going to spend ze whole day wiz ze police. Zey are on their way.

AT: I want the British Embassy! Someone phone the British Embassy!

AT’s wife: My 'usband's not well. 'E's already 'ad one heart attack. It's disgusting, it is. We've only bin 'ere two days.

The Angry Tourist clutches his chest and starts moaning loudly.

AT: Oooh! Arrgghh! Get an ambulance, quick! Oooh…

Waiter: No problem, monsieur – what is ze number for ze eenglish ambulance?

AT: Nine – nine - nine.

Gigi: Well, er – I’d better be off. Um – I’m sure the police will sort it all out.
(To the waiter) Je suis désolée. Nous ne sommes pas tous comme ça. Bon courage…


FIN

Camp sights: Part One

I have just come back from ten wonderful days in Ramatuelle with two of my children. We did hardly anything at all except sleep, read and sunbathe and it was perfect – well, almost.

I’ve never been camping with my children before. If we ever went on holiday, it was with my husband and he did all the booking, organising and driving. I am quite proud, therefore, that I managed to do all these things by myself and only got lost a teeny weeny bit at the end – hardly anything at all really; I just missed the turning for the campsite on the route des plages and had to do a nifty U-turn in a vineyard. No problem.

We stayed in a bungalow toilé. This was not some grotesque parody of English suburbia as I had first imagined, but a glorified furnished tent full of zips: the cupboards were zipped, the bedrooms were zipped, the windows were zipped, the door was zipped…Forget the sweet, soft chirping of crickets at dusk - every evening at bedtime, the air fairly resonated with the sound of zips.

The showers were great, which was a good job, since my two girls had refused to leave home without at least three kilos of make-up and toiletries – each. The loos, on the other hand, were Turkish. These holes in the ground have always inspired in me fear and loathing: what if I slip and get my foot stuck? What if I overbalance? It has not happened so far although the last one I frequented had a rather aggressive automatic flushing system which took me by surprise because I hadn’t quite finished…

There were a lot of Dutch and German people at the campsite, all tall with headfuls of gleaming Boris-Johnson hair. Our immediate neighbours - a blonde couple with two blonde, well-behaved children - provided us with fine examples of Teutonic discipline. When we staggered out of our bungalow at midday, bleary eyed and dishevelled, they had already left (at dawn) to visit some interesting, historical monument. They had prepared a healthy picnic and never forgot their sun block. I know this because I once got up very early to go to the loo and saw these items neatly aligned on their table. Our own table was strewn with the debris of the previous evening’s meal (cheese rind, gobs of pickle, apple cores and crisps) and our beach towels were hanging off the backs of the chairs rather than neatly pegged on the clothes horse provided. They also aligned their shoes on the terrace and I never once heard them yell ‘Where the *µ@% is my other flip-flop?’ as we did quite often.

It was a ‘family campsite’ which is a euphemism for ‘very noisy’. On most evenings, an animation was provided. We never went to any of these – we didn’t need to because we could hear everything from the comfort of our own beds. On the first night, an extremely irritating ventriloquist with a stupid voice kept us awake until half past eleven (I would have told him just where he could throw his voice but I am far too polite). The following evening, we were regaled with a couple of slightly out-of-tune guitarists who were obviously having a bit of plectrum trouble and a few nights later, a magician - who sounded suspiciously like the ventriloquist – performed an act which seemed to consist in shouting ‘Are you having fun, children?’ every five minutes to a worryingly silent audience.

Of course, it wasn’t really proper camping but it was bucolic enough for my tastes. I bravely squashed a huge spider with my shoe but I am ashamed to admit that when a giant cricket found its way into my children’s bedroom one night, I was unable to come to the rescue. Once more, it was my fearless daughter, Rachel, who found the courage to dispose of it (after suffocating it with fly spray) while I trembled in my own safely-zipped-up room like the despicable coward I am.

To be continued…

Liberty, Equality and Strikes

The other morning, I thought I heard rioters outside my door. Hundreds – perhaps thousands – of people were hurling incomprehensibly; traffic had come to a standstill; I could smell tear gas. Nevertheless, I ventured outside. Call me foolhardy if you wish, but I needed to buy some bread for lunch…

A substantial portion of the unruly mob was shabbily dressed. Men with straggling grey hair and corduroy trousers were brandishing placards; ferocious-looking women were punching the air with menace. The strains of a seventies’ protest song struggled to keep afloat above the chanting crowd while police stood on street corners looking a trifle bored. I spotted my daughter’s history teacher and nodded pleasantly. Ho hum. The teachers were on strike. Again.

The origins of the phrase faire grève, which means ‘to go on strike’, have more to do with looking for work than stopping it. The word grève means ‘gravel’ and by extension ‘shore’. In Paris, in the fourteenth century, workers would wait on the ‘shore’ of the Seine hoping for employment when the ships came in. The area was known as Place de Grève and functioned as a sort of job centre without the paperwork. It wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that the phrase acquired its present meaning, when it finally became legal to go on strike.

Oh, they like a bit of Revolution, do the French. Look at Robespierre. He would have been right up front today with a megaphone and a handful of flyers, egging everybody on. Indeed, these strikes are a sort of Reign of Terror, although the rolling of heads is just a figure of speech and the only chops to be had are lamb ones sizzling on the barbecue set up in front of the Préfecture (this is France, remember, and not even strikers would forgo their lunch). And who could forget mai ’68, when a student protest meeting in Paris sparked off a month of violent riots involving not only students but workers, school children, teachers and university lecturers? In a spectacular example of overreaction, the CRS – French riot police – were immediately sent in with truncheons and tear gas. The demonstrators reacted by building barricades, setting cars alight and hurling paving slabs. Hundreds of people were wounded on la nuit des barricades (the Night of the Barricades), including seventy-two policemen, but this merely added fuel to the fire. The trade unions joined the movement and by the end of les évènements, over ten million strikers had brought the whole country to a standstill. De Gaulle had even contemplated bringing in the army…

Yet, despite the violence and the inevitable shake-up of French society, the demonstrators aroused much public sympathy and this is still the case whenever there is a strike. In 1997, the lorry drivers went on strike and blocked access to the refineries so nobody could get any petrol. Did anyone complain? No. Even my (sort of ex) husband, whose fuse is so short he makes Basil Fawlty look like a monk on Prozac, happily stacked jerry cans full of petrol in the garage without so much as a murmur. And what about the civil servants? Normally the target of vicious and paranoid mutterings from the seventy-five per cent of the French population who do not work for the state, they suddenly become paradigms of virtue whenever they go on strike. Or maybe it’s just not that easy to tell the difference… Striking while the iron is hot, so to speak, the unions make sure they cause a maximum of inconvenience to everybody - which is, of course, the point. We all know that every year, the postmen will go on strike in the run up to Christmas and the dustbin men will choose the hottest month of summer.

Ask any French person if they think all this is thoughtless, foolish or downright mean and they’ll reply cheerfully that no – it’s democracy. Strange, then, that a mere ten per cent of the French working population belong to a trade union, compared to twenty per cent in the United Kingdom and a whopping eighty per cent in Sweden. Another French paradox, evidently…

Back to this morning, and as I waded through the throng in an attempt to reach the boulangerie on the other side of the road, I thought fondly of my seventeen year old daughter. She has also been on demonstrations for the past four Thursday afternoons with the rest of the lycéens, protesting against a proposed educational reform. How mature she is for her age, I mused – she has already found a cause to fight for! Was I witnessing a political activist in the making? A future leader of the Green Party, perhaps?

“So, dear,” I asked her at lunchtime. “Why exactly are you doing this?”

My daughter shrugged.

“Well,” she said. “There’s a chance I might be on telly…and also I get to miss maths.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.