Bleedin’ wet and windy here today in Co. Meath, it hasn’t stopped for the last five days really! Even if Monday was erringly warm as I drove back from Dublin at 10:30 pm with 16c showing on the dashboard, temperatures are sliding back down to its seasonnal self. Time for a nice warming soup and a little something very few of you might know, “The Groux” ( to be pronounced like the loveable-despicable character “Gru”), a traditionnal buckwheat-like bread from north Brittany, oven cooked like polenta and then fried in butter, this time, I decided to bake them mixed with Gruyere cheese, looking like soft savoury biscotti … “Simples”!…Anyhoo, here it goes…
It goes to show, a simple Sunday dinner can become personal… Oh well. Here is the step by step of this tasty recipe, I didn’t plan it, it just happened… It all started at the market, on Saturday morning, when I stumbled upon a fine looking butternut squash…
In my family, we had a funny tradition. For as long as I can remember, and almost religiously, Saturday night was “Couscous Night”; when 6pm came a ringing, my Dad would drive down town to his friend, proud owner of a “zinc” ( small French bar) in a corner of Marechal Leclerc Street. “The Duke’s Mill” if I remember well, with a Formica counter, a couple of tables and a pin ball machine near the toilets. Downstairs, right underneath the bar, was an impeccably dressed dining room only used at weekends, where Joel’s wife would cook only one dish: Couscous. When the days of take away food didn’t really exist yet, at least in my town – or so I thought – Dad would drop a big pot with its couscous steamer and collect it at the beginning of the evening, full to the bream.
They say that Carbonara was designed to feed Italian coal miners… “The black faces”. I don’t know if it’s true, but if I was a coal miner, I am sure I would wolf it down after a day down below. So yes, like a lot of legendary dishes, there are a lot of speculations about one of the most cooked pasta recipes in the world. All I know is that it is the first dish I cooked, it has evolved since and sometimes I add extra bits, it has also saved my life a few times, a dish that should be at the final exam of any leaving Certificates… Here is my father’s recipe, one I tend to follow…
I have a customer who comes in our shop; often on a Friday, sporadically on a Thursday. No matter where the conversation drifts, as it often does in our “philanthropic” business, she always speaks about her favourite movie “Fried Green Tomatoes” as a point of reference to everything. I have tried to invite her toward the route of different flicks that matters to me, “The Deer Hunter”, “ Paris, Texas”, “ Harold and Maude” or even “ Blade Runner” but without success… I guess some movies get stuck in your head, the same way the film featuring fried green tomatoes got stuck in mine when it was released in the early 90’s. The thing is, I’ve never done anything about it…
Well apart from our National anthems, Bro Gozh ma Zadoù (Old Land of My Fathers) and Hen Wlad fy Nhadau (Land of my Fathers), Breton and Welsh also share a love for the auld leek. My rare Breton name, meaning “The Lanky” appears for the first time in 1641 in Ergué-Armel near Quimper… Some say that we might have come from “The land of song”, like a lot of other aborigines from Ireland and England who made their way across to Brittany for a new life since the 5th century.
Did you know that the first garden Strawberries were first cultivated in Brittany? Yes, I can say that with a proud face, squinty eyes and hair in the wind while staring at the horizon from the bow of my ship; a mixture of Clint Eastwood and Jacques Cartier, Breton explorer, Canada discoverer and Strawberry amateur who brought back some Fragaria virginiana in the hull of his ship… The rest is history.
I know it is May 11th, but either Spring or like they call it here “Summer” has been and gone, either it hasn’t shown its face yet. A blustery, wet and cold Monday. Just as well I am off. Plans for today? Nothing.
I was 25 when my mother passed; she was just three weeks in her 50th birthday. I received an early phone call. The morning was early and bright, brisk and clear like the streams pouring out of neighbouring Connemara’s sterile and alkaline lakes. Between two sobbing sentences, my beautiful sister asked me to come home from my adoptive Galway. Time was running out and the unexpected news started to sink in. As I don’t fly, I travelled to Rosslare Harbour to catch a cargo ship. For £60, the Panther II gave you a cabin to yourself and three meals. It was an unsung way to travel at the time, the company didn’t advertise for a service mostly reserved for truck drivers, but in the meantime, didn’t object to the odd pedestrian crossing the channel. It was like travelling in time, travelling in style and honesty as the recent “Tiger” started to roar. As soon as we passed Tuskar lighthouse on our port, a school of common dolphins leaded the way at the bow, I looked at the sunset, dwelling at the inevitable. I was trying to forget about my canned grapefruit segments and the dry chicken Maryland we had for dinner when the ship’s Chef/ Barman brought me a ramekin of his homemade chocolate mousse. It is such a groovy dessert, but in time of need and hardship, old fashioned puddings feel like an unspoken hug. I think he knew what was going on… People of the sea know them things,no matter where you are from!
If there is a dish that has been made by at least three generations of women in my family, it has to be Blanquette. Funny name for the proverbial duvet cover of comfort foods methinks, but I think it refers more to the colour that the dish, which in its final stage, rewards the eye with a beautiful white colour and silky texture.
It is traditionally made with veal but the availability in Ireland is next to nil. On another note, I do not care too much for it, partly for ethical and anthropomorphism reasons… Don’t ask.
Hungry Breton 