Dear reader, perhaps you are feeling quite short-changed. You subscribe to a blog called ‘Life in Laroque’, and for the last 6 weeks or so, have had nothing but news from England: Yorkshire, to be exact.
Well, we’re back in Laroque, where in our absence they’ve had bitter cold, driving rain lasting for days, and astonishing heatwaves in which the thermometer has topped 40 degrees.
But just before we abandon postings about England, here is a souvenir slideshow of our time there. It’s a reminder for me really, so if dear reader, you decide to skip it on this occasion, I quite understand.
I’m so chuffed to be in England for the blackberry season. Ariègeois blackberries baked in the hot sun are sweet, characterless and make a rather dull jam. But then who goes to southern France to go blackberrying?
So yesterday I went out, meandered down a few nearby lanes, and came back with a bowl filled with large glossy, juicy, sweet and yet tart berries, a stained T shirt and fingers stuffed with tiny spines and tingling from nettle stings. I was very happy.
I set my berries to simmer down with the early apples from Jonet and Richard’s tree, and then…. only then, remembered I had neither a jelly bag nor a cache of jam jars ready waiting for the next stage. Oddly, I do have a preserving pan.
So it’s been the moment for a little ingenuity. An old clean T shirt ripped up made a jelly bag, and this morning we’ve been piling our toast with a week’s ration of marmalade, decanting apricot jam into a bowl, and scraping clean an almost-finished jar of honey. So far so good. But what happens when I need to make the next lot?
Returning from England to France, there’s generally a bag or two of various kinds of flour in the luggage. ‘What?’ I hear you grumble. ‘That woman who’s always banging on about buying local? The one who’s got no time for the English abroad who can’t exist without their mug of builder’s tea and a custard cream?’ Yes. That’s me. Guilty as charged.
Melting Moments
But the thing is, when in France, I sometimes have a happy hour or two baking English goodies – Melting Moments, Gingernuts, Marmalade Loaf Cake, that sort of thing – with or for French friends. And as I discovered the other week, French flour is simply not right for the job. Not better, not worse, just different.
I’d run out of my own supplies, so I nipped out and got a bag of good quality baking flour (because even more than in England, it’s important to buy the right type of flour for the job). And my tried and trusted favourites turned out all wrong. Ginger biscuits, instead of being satisfyingly chewy, with a solid crunch between the teeth, were sandy and brittle. Marmalade loaf cake, though light, was close-textured and almost crumbly. It was so disappointing. The answer, it seems, lies in the gluten content. The average French flour is ‘softer’, and has a lower gluten content than the average English flour.
French baguette
So is it surprising that superior French bakers in England, such as Dumouchel, where my daughter used to work on Saturdays, send over to Normandy for supplies of authentic French flour? Or that the average French stick, bought from the average English baker, in no way resembles its chewy French antecedent, the baguette.
English wholemeal loaves, fresh out of the oven
On this visit to England, I’m appreciating the softer crust and slightly moister qualities of a well-made wholemeal loaf, just as over in France, I enjoy the the crustiness of crisply baked French bread. Best to accept, I think, that both countries produce fine bakers and cake makers. But neither could do a fine job using the flour preferred by the other.
If you want an introduction to some of the many flours on offer to the keen baker, Dan Lepard’s site is a good place to start
For months now, back in our thickly forested département, we’ve been looking for wood. Not to burn this time, nor for the workaday laths and planks which are the stuff of the average d-i-y project. No, we needed thick, dense lengths, something like the impressive beams you see in houses and barns throughout France. And given what a common sight these are, they’ve proved incredibly difficult to source. Kalba had the best idea. ‘Had you thought of Montcru?’. Well, no, it was so far away, beyond la Bastide de Serou, that we hadn’t even heard of it.
View from the woodyard
But it was worth a journey. We’ve never been to such a place. Miles from anywhere much except lovely Seronais scenery, Robert and his wife run an idyllic looking B&B with woodyard attached.
Buying wood here involves a detailed discussion of your needs.
Robert trundles off with his large pick-up to select likely-looking logs while you stay and play with the cheerfully energetic dogs. Then he hoists the wood into his wonderfully large cutting machine which he somehow manoeuvred over himself from Poland, measures everything you your exact specification, cuts, trims….and hoists it onto your trailer or whatever.
The chosen log is hoisted ready to be cutLet cutting commence!Loading our trailer as the horses supervise
Two hours, a cup of coffee together as Robert worked out the bill, and we were off.
If you haven’t eaten chips cooked in duck fat, you haven’t lived. No, really
Time for lunch then though. L’Enso de Marichott. If the idea of eating in a shack in a car park doesn’t attract you, you’ve not been to l’Aire du Ségalas , near Castelnau-Durban. It’s a wooden chalet open only during the summer months, and almost the whole menu is based round duck – the ducks that the owners José and Jean-Luc raise themselves. In fact they grow much of what you eat, and almost all the rest is local, and organic at that. We had a quiet lunch, but weekend evenings are the time to go and party there, we’re told. Definitely worth a detour.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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