Thanks so much for comments on growing season in Maine, Nancy - the season was also lengthening considerably over the 25 years I lived in the wilds of Wales (same latitude as Maine). But the difference was in use of polytunnels for organics. Traditional field-grown crops suited to the climate - leeks (too wet for onions), carrots, potatoes, cabbage, veg marrows (reluctance to pick them small, so overgrown courgettes), parsnips, turnips - had already vanished from the farmers' market within the first ten years (family reasons - children didn't want to carry on). Traditionally the region is sheep and dairy with fishing by the coast.
Oh my Elisabeth -- my beloved will love this recipe. It ticks all his plain-food boxes.
And in reply to Nancy Harmon Jenkins below -- it's so exciting to see even here in Montana, where we too have a May-Sept growing season (tho it's shifting to June-Oct), that we have people building greenhouses, some of them with geothermal heat. I can now get local greens all winter, where I couldn't when I moved here 20 years ago. However, it's not quite the norm yet, but the canning/pickling tradition never quite died out, so a lot of us are breaking into our home-cured krauts, and pickles, and for me the fruits: blackcurrant jam, preserved sour cherries, and apples from both my fridge store, and from the peeled/cut chunks I put up in the freezer this year. And plum jam! I jammed 8 kilos of little plums this year. Jam for the whole neighborhood.
Thanks so much for your comments, Charlotte - very useful info, not least because lengthening the growing season is key to acceptance of local and seasonal as a recommendation. Btw forgot to add spring greens, parsley n chives in my reply to Nancy. (And pls give my best wishes and congrats on his good taste to yr best beloved!)
I had a whole series of brilliant comments to make, Elisabeth, but GD Substack cannot seem to hold onto them. So profoundly irritating. I wanted to talk about pollution and the death of the Schwartzwald and I have a link to read but if I go and look for the link, this comment will disappear (it's happened twice already) so I will not be diverted. But if you look for "Black Forest" and "disappearing trees" on Google you will find it. The best comment came from a news show on Public Radio called "The World."
I also wanted to mention my perplexity at the short growing season. We used to say that about Maine but no longer since Eliot Coleman has shown, throughout his career, that you can extend the growing season profitably by months on either side with a judicious use of crop covers which could be anything from an unheated greenhouse to individual row coverings. He is worth reading, and especially his Four Season Farm which details his methods. They are low tech and they work, even in Maine (even in MAINE!!!). Looking at the climate charts for the Black Forest, it would seem that there's plenty of room on either side for growing more and more varied crops. We need to have a dialog about this but just this once Substack has failed me.
And thank you for describing that lovely housewife and her store cupboard, as well as the onion tart. It sounds a lot like Alsatian Zweibelküchen, but you would know more about that than me.
Thanks so much for comments on growing season in Maine, Nancy - the season was also lengthening considerably over the 25 years I lived in the wilds of Wales (same latitude as Maine). But the difference was in use of polytunnels for organics. Traditional field-grown crops suited to the climate - leeks (too wet for onions), carrots, potatoes, cabbage, veg marrows (reluctance to pick them small, so overgrown courgettes), parsnips, turnips - had already vanished from the farmers' market within the first ten years (family reasons - children didn't want to carry on). Traditionally the region is sheep and dairy with fishing by the coast.
Oh my Elisabeth -- my beloved will love this recipe. It ticks all his plain-food boxes.
And in reply to Nancy Harmon Jenkins below -- it's so exciting to see even here in Montana, where we too have a May-Sept growing season (tho it's shifting to June-Oct), that we have people building greenhouses, some of them with geothermal heat. I can now get local greens all winter, where I couldn't when I moved here 20 years ago. However, it's not quite the norm yet, but the canning/pickling tradition never quite died out, so a lot of us are breaking into our home-cured krauts, and pickles, and for me the fruits: blackcurrant jam, preserved sour cherries, and apples from both my fridge store, and from the peeled/cut chunks I put up in the freezer this year. And plum jam! I jammed 8 kilos of little plums this year. Jam for the whole neighborhood.
Thanks so much for your comments, Charlotte - very useful info, not least because lengthening the growing season is key to acceptance of local and seasonal as a recommendation. Btw forgot to add spring greens, parsley n chives in my reply to Nancy. (And pls give my best wishes and congrats on his good taste to yr best beloved!)
Endorse the above comment, and then some- awaiting the linzer torte watercolours arrival, and the recipe of my fave Austrian indulgence.
On its way!
I had a whole series of brilliant comments to make, Elisabeth, but GD Substack cannot seem to hold onto them. So profoundly irritating. I wanted to talk about pollution and the death of the Schwartzwald and I have a link to read but if I go and look for the link, this comment will disappear (it's happened twice already) so I will not be diverted. But if you look for "Black Forest" and "disappearing trees" on Google you will find it. The best comment came from a news show on Public Radio called "The World."
I also wanted to mention my perplexity at the short growing season. We used to say that about Maine but no longer since Eliot Coleman has shown, throughout his career, that you can extend the growing season profitably by months on either side with a judicious use of crop covers which could be anything from an unheated greenhouse to individual row coverings. He is worth reading, and especially his Four Season Farm which details his methods. They are low tech and they work, even in Maine (even in MAINE!!!). Looking at the climate charts for the Black Forest, it would seem that there's plenty of room on either side for growing more and more varied crops. We need to have a dialog about this but just this once Substack has failed me.
And thank you for describing that lovely housewife and her store cupboard, as well as the onion tart. It sounds a lot like Alsatian Zweibelküchen, but you would know more about that than me.
My reply seems to have pitched up as a stand-alone post below, Nancy....fat-finger, no doubt!
I love everything about this Post, Elizabeth, the story, and the beautiful illustrations in your wonderful watercolors. ❤️
Loved reading this Elisabeth as I live so close to the Black Forest in Alsace!
Thanks Sarah - would be interested to hear how much has changed since the 1990's?
Thanks so much, Lulu!