Spring feels kind of possible even if the winter wasn’t quite winter with its climate-weirding mildness and perpetual rain. Looking at the raised beds –an accomplishment of last summer and purchased as affordable flat-pack type kits from Cwm Harry in Newtown– I noticed, on this seasonal cusp, all that Perpetual Spinach I sowed last spring. These leaves had somehow never happened last year but had arisen, however scraggly and slug-eaten, and constituted before my eyes a Bed Of Chard. (That’s what “perpetual spinach” really is, she says with disappointment).
Chard is my least favourite green, I admit. I just don’t have enthusiasm for it, though Rainbow Chard is so prismatically beautiful and the smaller leaves in the raised bed will be nice in a salad. And yet, chard is something I’ve managed, as a lazy gardener, to grow prolifically.
I did remember, maybe a decade ago, making a traditional tart from the south of France, recipe for which I found in Jane Sigal’s wonderful book Backroad Bistros: Farmhouse Fare: A French Country Cookbook from 1994. This is a book that maybe somehow has gotten lost among a fray of great books, but I love it, and could cook and bake my way through relaxed French food with it– wonderful stories, impeccable recipes — a classic in its way. I recommend it. And would put it beside the also wonderful When French Women Cook by Madeleine Kamman in a library of my favourite cookery books.
(Backroad Bistros also has a few really enchanting pages on snail farming in Burgundy — this inspired me years back to giving a go to growing snails as a kind of Permaculture operation, since there in Oxford where we lived there were so many, a pestilence really. I wouldn’t say I succeeded, though was a comical episode– maybe more on this another time. But if this is something you are interested in, there’s lots of information one could usefully cull from this small chapter.)
I’ve also set myself the challenge to explore the use of vegetables in sweet situations, as I wrote about here in Three Sisters last autumn. Since then I’ve discovered a wonderful and inspiring blog Veggie Desserts full of creative and beautiful recipes to enjoy.
Here is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls recipe for Tourte de Blettes. It’s not dissimilar from the one Jane Sigal collected from a market woman in Provence, though it includes lemon zest and has slightly different proportions– and Sigal’s recipe encouraged me to fold the excess dough of the bottom layer up over the top layer, so I got to have something that looked different from my usual style, which I liked.
And forgive below what is an unappealing photo (food photography is hard!!!!) of a very nice Apple Pie with a layer of chard, removed behind my back by my children off their plates, but hey-ho! In a few weeks time, they’ll be questioning the nettle tops and goosegrass I am going to be picking all around the Waysides of Spring and putting in all sorts of imaginings– including, I say, a pastry like this one.
Oh– I saved the apple peelings and cores, added honey and water, and have a new, small batch of wild apple vinegar on the go!
Kitchen Counter Culture 
I had never heard of Backroad Bistros, but from your description it seemed to be right up my alley. I’ve just ordered a used copy of it, so it will be with me shortly. I love chard and snails, though not necessarily together. I remember being on a fieldwork project in Crete back in the 80s when guys with 4×4 trucks came through the village announcing on their megaphones they were buying snails from the householders. All the ladies rushed out of their houses with pails filled with them. Those snails eventually ended up in France as escargot. Though having lived and gardened in Oxford, I was never tempted to eat the little slime critters there. You were very brave!
I bet garlicky snails and chard would be delicious together! 🙂 And I reckon you’ll really like the book…. And what a tale from Crete– did they farm them , or just collect them? RE my years in Oxford town, there was some special species that had come to Britain with the Romans–I was always trying to find them. The issue was that you had to “purge” the snails of the poisonous greens they fed on, then separate them from their own”waste.” I had some homemade contraption with wire screens that clearly wasn’t up to the task. Why I didn’t think to forage for them wild and eat a variety of species, I don’t know. Here in Wales around us I rarely if ever see snails– though slugs aplenty– and someone suggested that this would have to do with the level of mineral content in the soil. I truly can’t imagine eating slugs but … hmmmmmm….. Thanks for writing.
That looks very good to me!
i’ve taken sweet desserts to the savory side but never considered bringing greens over to the sweet side….i’m intrigued.
Jess, if you experiment , please report back– whatever you would make would be inspired I know!!!!!!!!
[…] after making a Tourte de Blette (a sweet Chard tart) from my over-wintered Bed of Chard, I determined to explore uses for greens in desserts, and with the chard still growing profusely, […]
[…] Spinach Tart and Claudia Roden’s almond-spinach confection, and of course the more famous Tourte de Blettes, a southern French chard […]