The French Menu Cookbook: The Food and Wine of France - Season by Delicious Season

KITCHEN GARDENS

A garden can alter the entire aspect of one’s kitchen and table. Even without a garden, most herbs can still be raised in pots or window boxes, but with a few square yards of garden space, one can plant such hard-to-find and easy-to-grow things as chervil (in French, cerfeuil). For constant production it should be planted every two or three weeks from early spring to early fall—in a shady corner at the hottest part of the season. Sorrel (French, oseille) requires no particular care or special soil, and with a bit of protection during the winter, will produce all year round for four or five years. Wild fennel (fenouil) is another good garden possibility, as are all the semi-wild salads: rocket (roquette), lamb’s lettuce (mâche), burnet (pimprenelle), purslane (pourpier à salade), basil (basilic), borage (bourrache) and many others. In France, seed packages of mixed wild salads (mesclun) are commonly sold. In the list of useful addresses I have given the name of a French seed (#ulink_c00696ae-91e1-5e10-a8ce-a53d253f9a8e) house that mail-orders to America.

If space allows, a few artichoke plants (the violet variety, if pos-sible) will permit the discovery of the marvelous raw artichoke, eaten with a vinaigrette at a tender young age before the choke is even de-veloped. Other useful plants are the common gray shallots (échalotes grises)—I have substituted onions for shallots in most recipes in this book, for the only shallot that I have ever found on the American market is the ugly, coarse-flavored red shallot. Also useful are leeks (poireaux), and broad beans (fèves)—one of the most exquisite of all vegetables, hard to find and nearly always too mature when offered for sale. To import the seeds, a customs permit is necessary. And, of course, there are green beans, which are never picked young enough and never sold fresh enough. Nasturtiums will grow anywhere with no care, and the flowers are as pretty as they are useful in salads. A rich soil will produce too much foliage and few flowers.