11 August 2008

Fauna and flora


Hedgehog

A couple of nights ago I let Callie out to pee and she started barking wildly at something. I got a flashlight and went out to see what it was.

It was a hedgehog, un hérisson. I managed to get the picture above, with flash, but it's not very good. The 'hog was hunkered down, rolled up in a ball, waiting for Callie to stop barking. I pulled the dog away and made her go into the house. Then the hedgehog disappeared into the night.

Hedgehogs live here in Europe, including the British Isles, but not in North America. Here is the Wikipedia article on them.

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"I can't believe you took that first picture!"

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The question of blackberries and where they grow has come up on Walt's blog (here and here) and on this one.

I have memories of enormous blackberry brambles in coastal North Carolina when I was growing up. I was talking to my mother about it last week. On our block in town, there was an old wooden shed, big enough to be a garage for one of those enormous finned Chevies or Pontiacs of the 1950s, that was completely taken over by blackberry brambles in the space of just a few years. If the building didn't collapse under their weight, it was because somebody went in and tore it down just in time.

The blackberries were big, fat, juicy and sweet-tart every summer. We picked quarts and quarts of them, which we ate out of a jar or which my mother made into jam, jelly, or blackberry pie. Wild blackberries seemed to like the very not climate there. It's much hotter than it is in the Saint-Aignan area or the Loire Valley in general.

Loire Valley blackberries, not yet ripe on August 11, 2008

It's also much much hotter, but much drier, in the Sierra Nevada foothills in central California. That's where our friend Sue lives, about 30 miles northeast of Sacramento, near Grass Valley and Nevada City. And the blackberries love it there too, as Walt mentioned. Again, the berries are plump, juicy, and sweet. The brambles will quickly take over large stretches of land and even roads and buildings if somebody doesn't keep them cut back.

There are certainly many varieties or species of blackberries. I don't know if the ones here in France are the same ones we had in North Carolina, or if those are the same ones we knew in California. I just know that the Loire Valley blackberries are not as plump and juicy as the American ones we used to enjoy. For whatever reason. I think it must partly be the cool climate.

Walt says he doesn't remember blackberries from his childhood in Upstate New York. I don't remember any in Illinois from the years when I lived in Champaign-Urbana. Maybe the winters are just too harsh for them in those climes, and their roots freeze. Editing: See comments below. I guess blackberries do grow in cold climates. And as Susan pointed out, there are many many varieties. The reason Loire Valley blackberries are smaller, longer to ripen, and not as sweet as ones I've known in N.C. and Calif. must be a matter of terroir!

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Grapes

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Speaking of bad weather, the TV weather forecasters are predicting that France, at least the north, can expect a week of autumnal temperatures and precipitation. Here it is mid-August, and our summer seems to have gone south. I guess we can still hope for a nice warm month of September. That's what happened last year.

9 comments:

  1. There are about a dozen species of wild bramble in the Loire, including your standard-ordinary-no-nonsense-not-messed-around-with blackberry, some other species of blackberry and wild raspberries (which you can always tell because their leaves smell of raspberries if you crush them).

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  2. With all this talk of blackberries lately, I had a nice slice of freshly-made blackberry pie at a little restaurant/bar/inn on the Mississippi river Sunday, in Illinois. I often see blackberry pie on the menu and in the grocery store bakery in the summer around here, so I think we have them in Missouri and Illinois. It was nice and sweet/tart, with a tasty crust :) I didn't take a photo, though! The restaurant is located right on the banks of the river, next to the Golden Eagle Ferry... and to get to it, we go from the Great River Road along the Illinois River (which is a really lovely route... great for Eagle-watching in the winter), and first take a ferry to get across the Illinois, then drive for several miles through the lovely farmland and hills of the peninsula we land on. It's a fun, scenic drive (one of the only nice ones around here), and the restaurant is a fun place, but, it's a shame that their food is pretty disappointing...fried, fried, fried. We had fun, though!
    Judy

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  3. Susan, can you tell from my picture what these berries are? Are they the no-nonsense wild blackberry? In other words, just ronces.

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  4. Judy, I was just looking at that restaurant's menu. I see they have chicken gizzards as an appetizer or as a main course. Are they breaded and fried? Or do you know? I wonder if they are confits, or slow-cooked, so that they are tender. I also wonder what Buffalo Fish Fritters are!

    That does look like a nice river drive.

    You are surely right about blackberries in Illinois, at least in your part. Up in Champaign-Urbana, everything is given over to corn (maize). I need to ask my friends who have a house in the country there if they have blackberry brambles at all.

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  5. Ken, I'm SURE the chicken gizzards are breaded and fried -- everything there is! :)) In fact, it's funny that you honed in on that, because when I saw them on the menu I thought of you and Walt and your eating of gésiers! Buffalo fish is a Mississippi water fish (I think?) I'd never heard of before living here, and the only place you see it is in the country-eatin' restaurants. There's another one along the river road called The Finn Innn, where you actually have aquariums in the wall at all of the booths, so you can see the buffalo fish and crappy and turtles and all just swimming away :) Anyway, your guess is as good as mine as to how they make the fritters!
    Judy

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  6. Blackberries ripen more slowly in cooler climates, but they do ripen. I've seen huge blackberry bushes in Maine, so winter cold doesn't hurt their roots. I remember them ripening for picking in late August-early September.

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  7. Emm, thanks. I've edited my post above to reflect your experience of blackberries in Maine.

    Judy, I was imagining fish fritters somehow prepared the way Buffalo chicken wings are made, and I couldn't figure out what Buffalo would have to do with it otherwise.

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  8. Ken - I will have to try running your blackberry pic through the key and get back to you regarding which species they are (probably just regular ronces though).

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  9. Susan, no need to go to any trouble. I was out with Callie this afternoon and we ate quite a few blackberries along the way. Most were nice and sweet. They are fairly few and far between though and it seems like it would be a lot of effort to go pick very many — enough to make a pie or some jelly, for example.

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