Catching a Rainbow

Beer

Not something usually associated with Brittany, which is strange for a region so far north.
The Bretons came from Britain. In fact the true name of Brittany...is Brittany. Bretagne was a French invention and Breizh later came about following Breton independence but they did not seem to bring with them the gift and art of brewing that venerable tipple...beer.
Beer is too often overlooked both for drinking and for cooking and often seems to be denigrated to the realms of unsophisticated food, which is a shame.
Strictly speaking no wine is produced in Brittany... However, the vineyards of Muscadet in Loire Atlantique are considered by some to still be part of Brittany.
Loire-Inférieure was one of the original 83 départements created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was renamed in 1957 when it was annexed, some say stolen, from Brittany.
Brewing is a recent innovation for the Bretons and so far they seem to be doing a pretty good job of it. The Dremwell Brewery only began brewing in 1998 is a good example. The beer is not like English, there are less hops and a greater use of wheat, producing a blonde beer similar to the Weißes Bier of Germany. The darker beers, and they in general are categorised by their colour are more akin to the beers of Belgium with its long tradition of monastic breweries.
Dremmwel, meaning horizon in Breton, is a local beer made in the parish of Minihy-Tréguier. The beers are incredible full bodied, round with complex citrus undertones. All that aside, they are a fantastic drink, fermented in the bottle and as such are live beers and are best served really cold on a hot day.

DREMMWEL
ZA de Kernevec
22220 Minihy-Tréguier
Tel : 02 96 92 43 66

A Man for All seasons
One thing about living in rural France is that you soon realise just how noisy it is. The harvest has begun; the corn is in, the Blé Noir yet to be cut. Here they have a day of celebration just for a bean, the Coco de Paimpol AOC, so you can see they take their farming seriously.
Apart from the dust of tractors and harvesters living within such a strong farming community led me to dwell on the passing of the seasons and growing older. Something Shakespeare would have no doubt called a melancholy but which my wife just calls me being miserable.
This all came about the other day when I told Bex that I had been reflecting on how the autumn of my life was going. She quickly assured me that she was far too young to be involved let alone married to anyone who was even thinking of an autumn lifestyle.
I am now forty-six years old and I had got to forty-five years -364 days old without any grey hairs at all. Then, on my last birthday, wham, what do I find but a grey hair. Since then they have been reproducing exponentially which I am not altogether pleased about. No grey pubic hairs at the moment...but when that happens I will let you know.
Some loose their hair. I have a different problem, it has started growing in a host of different unwanted places...which I produce as categorical evidence that the Theory of Evolution is a crock of pooh. If I needed hair sprouting from my ears, I would have needed it as a child to get me through the first few years. Hairy ears at 46 is of no evolutionary benefit and as such must be the work of a Divine Creator, albeit with a warped sense of humour.
My nasal hair is getting longer and for some bizarre reason my moustache is growing higher...I do not know whether to pluck my moustache or shave my nose...it is all very disturbing at my stage of life.
Which brings me back to the seasons of life. 80 years old seems an attainable age these days, which if you think that 0-20 is spring and 20-40 is summer then I am in the autumn of my life, which left me dwelling once again on unwanted hair and the fact that I sometimes groan when I bend to pick things of the floor.
My exuberant wife reminded me that winter begins in December not January and so my time scale was all out of kilter. She however refused to accept that the 10 days difference from the 1st Day of winter 21st December, was not going to make a great difference. There is nothing for it I am definitely in the autumn of my life...but I am happy.
Then I hit on a great idea to make myself feel younger.
There are 365 days in a year and if we live for lets say 80 years, then one year would equal 4.6 days, that is if our whole life were just one year that starts on the 1st December.
I am 46 years old, which equals 211 days on a one-year scale...which means I am June the 1st old, so much better than 46 and still early in the summer.
I really think this could catch on...

Charles Lindbergh owned a holiday home on the Isle de Ileac at Bugéles, not a stone throw from the restaurant Le Gouermel.
It is a sad reflection of the times, as the general response so often appears to be...who was Charles Lindbergh!


Lindbergh Does It! To Paris in 33 1/2 Hours; Flies 1,000 Miles Through Snow and Sleet; Cheering French Carry Him Off Field
New York Times, May 21, 1927

Early in the morning on May 20, 1927 Charles A. Lindbergh took off in The Spirit of St. Louis from Roosevelt Field near New York City.
Flying northeast along the coast, he was sighted later in the day flying over Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. From St. Johns, Newfoundland, he headed out over the Atlantic, using only a magnetic compass, his airspeed indicator, and luck to navigate toward Ireland. The flight had captured the imagination of the American public like few events in history. Citizens waited nervously by their radios, listening for news of the flight. When Lindbergh was seen crossing the Irish coast, the world cheered and eagerly anticipated his arrival in Paris. A frenzied crowd of more than 100,000 people gathered at Le Bourget Field to greet him. When he landed, less than 34 hours after his departure from New York, Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

As to his living near Buguéles, the Lindberghs had first become aware of the area through Charles's friend, Dr Alex Carrel, who had won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1912.
He and his wife had settled on Isle Saint-Gildas, the largest member of the archipelago, facing the small seaside resort of Port-Blanc and with the village of Buguéles a little to the east. A few kilometres inland is the market town of Penvenan while on the coast to the west is the bigger and smarter resort of Perros-Guirec and the beautiful rose red cliffs of the Cote de Granit Rose.

The Ile Illiec, a small island off the north Brittany coast of France which was owned by the Lindberghs during their stay in Europe between 1936 and 1939. It is a tiny archipeligo of miniature islands.......... . Most of the time, these rock formations sit as islands dotting the coast line; but twice a day the tide recedes, pulling so much water out........that the islands stand as weird, craggy hills among tidal pools- a wet desert, dead-quiet except for the birds and the constant winds.

They were both profoundly affected by the atmosphere. A few islands away, and at low tide connected to both Saint-Gildas and the mainland, was Iliac barely four acres but big enough for a three storey, slate roofed stone house with a dozen rooms including a chapel and a conical tower.
In March 1938 they were able to purchase it for $16 000. Charles wrote,
"I have never seen a place where I wanted to live so much."
The Lindberghs lived on Iliac from early June to early December 1938 but the worsening situation in Europe, leading to their decision to return to the US in April 1939, meant that they never lived there again.


Reference: Charles Lindbergh, an American Aviator as cited @ http://www.charleslindbergh.com/
Donations for the Lindbergh site

Ups

The first leaves of Salad de la Mâche or Lambs leaf lettuce are coming onto the market.
This tender leaf, available through the winter needs to be treated carefully as it bruises easily.

It is easily damaged by too much vinegar, which being acidic actually cooks the leaf.
Wonderful served with a walnut oil dressing and a few fresh cob or hazelnuts.
Here I have made a dressing of 4 parts Walnut Oil to 1 part white Port and added a few smoked bacon lardons sautéed with brown mustard seeds

The last of the season’s figs are available now. Another few weeks and they will not be worth buying.

The Breton flag is called Gwenn-ha-Du, which means 'white and black,' in Breton.
It was created by Morvan Marchal a founding member of the nationalist movement Breizh Atao (Brittany forever).
The movement had links with both the Irish Republican Movement (IRA) and the Basque separatists. There is still an underlying nationalist trend in Brittany but it is certainly not as focused as the Irish and Spanish examples and unlike the Basque does not transcend national borders, (There is also a Basque region in France, Biarritz).
Although the Breton language links people of the region, that same language is also a divisive factor. Bretons in adjoining villages speak a different version of the same language and certainly believe that they are different from those in adjoining villages. Indeed the language is so insular some have said that it cannot be classed as a distinctive language at all.
The eleven ermines are for the kings and dukes who governed independent Brittany. The stripes are symbols of the nine old bishoprics. Black representing the dioceses of Gallic language (Dol, Nantes, Rennes, St Malo and St Brieuc). The white represent the dioceses of Breton language (Trégor, Leon, Cornwall and Vannes). We live in Trégor. Some Bretons believe that the eleven ermine spots represent the phrase Breizh dieuh or Free Brittany.

In a recent poll for the Le Telegramme newspaper 62% of people felt that Breton Culture was in danger of being lost. The Bretons should take courage from the Welsh example.
In the 1960's Welsh culture was all but dead but with the re-introduction of the language and a fiercely independent nature the Welsh some forty years later have safeguarded their patrimony for the future by the creation of the Welsh National Assembly in Cardiff.

One of the great myths about living in France, is that the coffee is great.
This may surprise some, it certainly shocked the hell out of me once the euphoria of living in another country wore off.
I have, on occasions, been know not to respond to well to mornings...unless able to partake in several if not three strong cups of coffee, each and every morning, preferably left alone and allowed to listen to Radio 4 for at least 30 minutes. And I was surprised that even after three cups, the French stuff was not having the desired effect, why?
French Coffee is a con. It catches you when you are unaware, like on holiday.
You sit on the terrace, balcony or in a restaurant, whilst on holiday, and the smells of coffee fresh croissants and bread pervade every cell in your body conning your body including your brain to think…
'how wonderful this coffee is,’ when in fact it is not the coffee, it is the scenery, the atmosphere and ones state of mind.

I have now tried forty different coffees and they are all the same, overly aromatic too acidic and redolent of burnt sawdust combined with peat.
But fear not, Sainsbury’s is at hand. Sainsbury’s French roast coffee, has all the constituents of a three month sojourn in the south of France, bread, croissants, blue skies , baked earth, rosemary and thyme and available in every town in Great Britain!
Marvellous.




Update
Things are improving. I have now found Breton Matin made by Cafés Laurent Coïc and this is as close as I can get to recovering that holiday feeling...every morning.

Breton Matin by Cafés Laurent Coïc is available at Intermarche's through out Brittany
Thankyou

This is my version of a traditional Breton dish which is great served with fresh bread and a green salad.
For 4 or 5 people.
2Lb Loin of pork. (The loin is from where pork chops are cut but should not include the flabby fatty bit of a chop. A piece about eight inches long will serve four as it does shrink. If you can’t get a loin then use thick pork chops, it will be good but not quite the same.)

4 Oz butter, (don’t skimp!)
12 shallots, peeled.
6 cloves of garlic peeled.
1-2 lbs small new potatoes.
1 litre medium cider (Sainsbury's taste the difference cider is very good, if you cant find Breton.
1 chicken stock cube,
1 tablespoon plain flour
Pepper.
Chopped parsley

Melt the butter in casserole dish (which has a lid), add the shallots and garlic and gently brown for five minutes but don’t allow to burn, add the stock cube and pepper, cook for two minutes, add the flour and mix in well.
Add the loin (or chops) and the cider, surround with the potatoes and cook at 180 for one hour, remove the lid and cook for a further hour (30 mins if using chops).
Remove the meat and keep warm, reduce the sauce until syrupy, carve the meat into thick slices and place on top of the potatoes etc. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with a green side salad. Serve with a dry cider or a dry white wine.

Les Jardins du Trieux is a charming Crêperie situated in the centre of Pontrieux on the banks of the River, which gives the town its name.
It is open all year offering traditional Breton Crepes, Galettes as well as other more substantial dishes of steak and local sausages.
The interior is relaxing, the owners’ friendly and the food simple but well prepared.
From spring through summer Pontrieux is a riot of colour as the bright coloured shops and houses are complemented by the profusion of flowers decorating the bridge and the surrounding streets and its famous wash stones or Lavoirs.
Pontrieux is only a short distance from the impressive chateaus of La Roche Jagu and the ruined Abbaye de Beauport.