Foire au gras and pruning the olive tree

The foire au gras this weekend in Roujan is the beginning of the Christmas season.  People here don’t send cards, give as many presents or shop as determinedly as those in other countries, but food, as always, is important.  The foire au gras (which translates into English as ‘fat fair’, but this doesn’t sound so good), is a chance to buy foie gras, cured duck breast, whole ducks, wine, cured sausages …. all the delicious foods that are part of Christmas meals in this area, and all directly from the producers.

The fair is held in the village hall and sports hall, a very modern setting for a traditional event.  Outside there were cheese, shellfish and vegetables stalls and amusements for children.  Inside there were rows of craft stalls and, most importantly, the wine and food producers’ stands.

We bought a duck and some foie gras from M. Gaubert of Camp Grand in the Aveyron, who was eager to talk about his produce and give advice about cooking and serving it.  We also tasted for the first time (and bought) some excellent wines from Domaine Bonian at nearby Pouzolles.  Some say that this is an expensive way to buy these products, but I would much prefer to pay a little extra and buy from the producers, talk to them and taste, rather than buying anonymously in a supermarket.

Some people, too, I know, have reservations about foie gras production, but I think that when it is properly produced it is not cruel, unlike the mass-produced battery-farmed chicken, eggs and pork which are eaten by so many.

Pruning the olive tree

A couple of weeks ago we harvested the olives from the older and slightly larger of our two olive trees.   This tree was one we bought without thinking too much about it, soon after we bought the garden, as we wanted to plant one as soon as possible.  It has always been rather straggly and was in need of a good prune, which I did this morning.  The aim when pruning olive trees is to have space in the centre with the branches spreading outwards and this is what I’ve tried to do.

Before pruning . . .

. . . and after.

Pruning like this may mean a smaller crop next year, but it should make a better shaped tree for the future.

I’ve taken the fresher, newer leaves to dry because I want to try olive leaf tea.  The other branches will make a good start for the fire the next time we light the barbecue.

Today’s harvest

Tiny parsnips and carrots (some of which were given to us by our neighbours in exchange for some parsnips, which they’d never tried before), the last of the aubergines and, hiding behind the bowl, some radishes.  We’re also picking salad leaves almost every day now.

 

 

And what is this doing here?  Anemones aren’t supposed to flower until the spring, but this one seems to have been fooled by the warm weather we’ve been having lately.

Autumn vineyards near Roquessels

Taken yesterday on a trip to buy wine from Domaine d’Estève, about 7 kilometres away.  It’s still definitely autumn here, with the leaves on the plane trees just turning brown and the temperature up to 16 degrees even on a cloudy day like this.  The vine growers are beginning to prune their vines.  This takes a long time – all winter for those who have large vineyards – as it all must be done by hand with secateurs.

The vines in the foreground in the pictures above are the ones I photographed last month – here – which have now been pruned ready for next year’s growth.

 

The dark green foliage on the hillside to the left is mostly evergreen arbutus and holm oak.  There’s some nice old terracing in the photo on the right.  I wish the sun had been shining, but we’re having unusually cloudy weather this week.

Olive mill

From now until January, depending on the variety, is the time when the ripe black olives are harvested for oil. Sixty or seventy years ago there were three olive mills in our village, one of these in the same place as our house, and other villages would have had their own mills. But gradually these closed and in recent years the nearest mill has been the cooperative at Clermont-l’Hérault, about 25 kilometres away – quite a long way to transport small harvests of olives. Now, though, we have an olive mill in the village, Le Moulin de Casso, opened last week by three local olive growers to press their own olives and those of other growers in the area.

We visited the mill today and saw the brand-new machinery working, olives being delivered for pressing and people picking up their oil after pressing. It’s very exciting to see it all. We tasted two different oils, one unfiltered with a wonderful strong taste and another filtered one with a slightly more delicate taste. The mill isn’t yet registered to sell oil so we shall have to wait until next year to buy this local oil.

The approach to the mill, lined with olive trees, and with a view of the village in the background.

The olives are washed and any leaves removed (into the sack in the foreground).	The olives are taken to the machine which turns the flesh and stones into a pulp.
The pulp is mixed before going to the centrifuge which extracts the oil.	The oil comes out of the centrifuge and is filtered before being put in containers for collection or storage.

The waste pulp from which the oil has been removed is piped outside.

There was a wonderful smell of olives and olive oil in mill. It seems very popular as many local olive growers have already started bringing their olives here for pressing. It takes a tonne of olives to produce 110 to 120 litres of oil, depending on the variety, and this takes a day to process.

Last year in November I posted an ‘Olive Week’ series and I wrote about the olive mill we visited at St-André-de-Sangonis – here – le Moulin de Casso isn’t as big, yet, but it’s very exciting to have it here in the village.

My other Olive Week posts were about the origins and history of the olive tree and wood, oil and war, on the products and uses of the olive tree and, finally, they way in which the trees are destroyed in Palestine by the Israeli army as a way of suppressing the Palestinian people, something which still continues, tragically.

Planting garlic

According to the calendar of the moon, last weekend was a good time to plant garlic, but we missed it, so we did it today, in a bed which we put a lot of goat manure in last winter.

Some of the garlic we bought in Villereal market when we were there in September – we bought 5 kilos, so we haven’t eaten it all yet!

We’ve put a drip-feed hose along the middle of the double row so that we can water the garlic easily in the late spring and early summer when it needs a lot of water. After planting the cloves about 7 or 8 cm apart we covered them with straw to conserve moisture and to try to stop the birds pulling them out before they root.

Our leeks are growing well and we pulled the first two today. We’ll eat them tonight sautéed in butter with pancetta.

Since we’ve had some rain and the ‘second spring’ has begun, the oregano has started to grow again, so I’ve cut some leaves to dry and store for the winter.

There are a few small aubergines still growing – we barbecued two for lunch today, with a sweet onion. The aubergines should carry on growing slowly until the first frost which could come any time now, but isn’t forecast for at least the next week.

There’s still a lot of colour in the garden – roses, especially, and the leaves of the cherry tree in the garden next to ours:

And we’re still harvesting green chillies although they won’t turn red at this time of year. I picked one today – there are more, but we don’t eat many hot peppers so I’ve left the rest for another time.

Red vine leaves

Although the sun wasn’t shining today and the sky was grey, the leaves in this vineyard near Chateau de Cassan on our way to Roujan were a wonderful deep, purplish-red colour which looked beautiful against the olive trees. I think these vines are Grenache (Garnacha in Spanish, Garnatxa in Catalan).

In the photos above, between the rows of vines, you can see the white flowers of the false rocket which is sown in the vineyards and then ploughed in as a green manure. It self-seeds everywhere, including in our garden, and you can eat it. It tastes just like rocket but with a slightly coarser leaf.

Salt-curing the olives

When I researched olive-curing in books and on the Internet, there seem to be so many ways of doing it and every recipe is slightly different from the next one. In the end, the method I’m using is a simplified version of several of the ones I came across. It’s the first time I’ve salt-cured olives – last year we cured them in brine rather than dry salt – so this is an experiment. I’ll keep you updated with progress over the next couple of months as we see how it works.

First, I rinsed the olives and left them to drain for 24 hours. Some of them were still a bit damp so I dried them with kitchen paper. Then I layered them with coarse salt in an earthenware casserole dish, a thick layer of salt, followed by a layer of olives, another layer of salt, olives, and a final thick layer of salt.

I then covered the casserole with its lid and put it on the stairs, which is the place in the house with the most constant, and the coolest, temperature. I shall check it in a couple of days’ time to see if there is any liquid to drain off. According to the recipes I have seen, the curing should take one to two months. It is possible to cure the olives more quickly by pricking them with a fork before salting – this method takes only a week. Maybe I’ll try that another time.

Olive harvest

This morning I picked the olives from the older of our two trees, which we planted about five years ago. There were 178 undamaged ripe olives – more than double the 80 we picked last year. If the number carries on increasing at this rate I won’t be counting them individually next year!

I’m thinking of trying something new with them this year – dry salt curing. I’ve found a few recipes for this and the one on www.greek-recipe.com looks the simplest. The olives have to be rinsed and then layered with salt in a clay pot (other recipes suggest a basket or slatted box) for 1-2 months. Once cured they will not keep as long as brine-cured olives, but that shouldn’t be a problem as we’ll eat them quite quickly!

The olives on our smaller tree, the Lucques, are not quite ripe yet, so I’ll pick them in a week or so. I think I’d prefer to use the recipe I’ve used before for them, as I know it works, but more on this when they’re ready to be cured.

Some last tomatoes and more gifts …

While I was picking the olives and sowing some mangetout peas and more broad beans, Lo Jardinièr cleared the St Pierre and the Coeur de boeuf tomato plants. There were still some edible green and red tomatoes on the plants. Our neighbour gave us three pumpkins of different varieties, too. I hope they keep well as it will take us some time to eat them all. It's impossible to say no to people's generosity here.