clearing up of wild orchids and foxgloves for dinner...
By resi
4 comments
a sad week here when the annual ‘fauchage’ took place around our village lanes, this is the yearly shearing of the verges, a job which is contracted out to farmers using their tractors, at least i suppose we were lucky they didnt use poison, spraying by hand continuously from the side door of a driving van which is the preferred method of clearing unwanted growth along the road sides, and not advisable to drive behind!
we had many orchids in there, pyramids, bee orchids and lizzard amongs others, all gone.
last year we had a much more sympatetic person doing the job as we found more than a few orchids had been avoided or at least partly avoided and a real effort seemed to have been made.
lets hope they decide on a different time for doing the job next year
we went out for a celebration meal last night, my starter was beautifully crispy fried pieces of red mullet with a lovely salad of various leaves with orange and grapefruit segments, however in the middle of this really nice dish was a beautiful foxglove flower!!
what????
yes i did have a quiet word with the owner who seemed rather sceptical ….
i dont think we will go there again in a hurry
7 May, 2011
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Comments
Are the verges a safety issue? do they have to be cleared or is it just a springtime habit/practice? Good lord it's a wonder anything grows if they've sprayed~...is it defoliant or what? Are all of your farmers dying young? That is a worry. Stay well downwind from the sprayers, Resi! good luck.
Not sure if the stimulating properties of foxglove extends to the blossom...lol... tell them to decorate plates with violas and leave the foxglove for a vase on the table! Guess they should have an update at culinary school...what's toxic and what's garnish! btw..I think I've found watercress growing on the edge of the little stream!
7 May, 2011
just been looking at oak leaves troddles and found they are also poisonous but mainly to lifestock, now i never knew that.
strange though that chefs will put something potentially lethal on their customer's plate without doing a bit of research, rather self destructive i would have thought, never mind being not very customer friendly!
no as far as i know the spraying is not a safety issue here at all, we even had a farmer a cple of years ago here who grew a green crop, very good...exept he then proceeded to spray it, kill it and plough it in..
a bit beside the point that!!
people are very keen on spraying and this is The time of the year to do it, i suppose the verges are done for safety's sake mainly as they grow so high and the lanes so narrow, that view is obstructed and lanes become dangerous to negotiate
i cannt get to my watercress patch easily at the mo as the cows with their boyfriend are in residence now and this particular bull doesnt seem to like women.
how good is that lori to have your own watercress supply.
7 May, 2011
Oh that is so very sad to hear, really can not believe in todays world that we are not more informed on spraying practices.
U should really return to that eating establishment & take some literature to prove. U knew not to eat it, but what about the not so smart gourmant :-)))
7 May, 2011
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Unfortunately it is farmers the world over, they are only interested in manipulating nature to maximise what they grow or raise. On your other point, we had a restaurant in our village that used to decorate meals with oak leaves :-)
7 May, 2011