The foraging French

The French love foraging. Come autumn you’ll see the country lanes cluttered with cars as the locals go out morning and afternoon searching for mushrooms, nuts and in some areas, truffles. You can’t blame them; our neighbour augments his pension by selling mushrooms, gathered from his own secret location, to a local restaurant. He’s usually coming back home with a heavy basket of cepes just as I’m opening the shutters in the morning. Such is the demand that local hostelries often have a blackboard outside citing the different products they are seeking – champignons, chatâignes and noix.

Some of my haul of walnuts

 

I did pick blackberries the first year that I was here, but they were so full of pips and bugs that it didn’t seem worthwhile. The French don’t seem very keen on blackberries or elderberries which are also prolific locally. I’d never trust myself to eat a mushroom that I had picked in the ‘wild’ – I’m much too cautious about food poisoning. However, in France you can take your haul of mushrooms to the local pharmacy where someone with proper training will identify whether they are edible or toadstools. I was quite reluctant, one year, when my neighbour presented me with several magnificent cepes, but she assured me that she’d been foraging for mushrooms with her grandparents since she could walk and knew all the best places where they could be safely gathered. Fried in butter with some garlic and parsley I have to agree that they were delicious.

The Limousin is well-known for its chestnut trees; the chestnut leaf is the regional symbol. Production includes both edible chestnuts (marrons) and huge quantities of wood. It’s also a good area for nuts, particularly hazelnuts and walnuts. The other day I noticed a stranger to the village, crouched down in the lane opposite our garden, filling a plastic carrier bag with something. On investigation I discovered that he was foraging for walnuts.

There is a huge walnut tree growing on communal land right opposite our house and the nuts are now starting to ripen and drop. At first glance the husk doesn’t look anything like a walnut and once they have fallen to the floor the hard green outer shell starts to rot and turn black. They don’t look very appetising. However, inside is the familiar pale walnut shell that reminds me of childhood Christmases.

Not very appetising - walnuts in the outer husk

In a couple of evenings of foraging I was able to gather three kg of walnuts. Another few hours of shelling (thank goodness I’ve still got my Mother’s old 1960s nut-crackers) and I had enough shelled walnuts to make some delicious Raw Chocolate Walnut Brownies from nuts gathered just outside the kitchen door.