Les Foodingues

This announcement is not custom paper writing service from me… It is from Terrena, the biggest agro coop in France, one of the most important customer of agro chemical products in the world today…

It seems that after trying to produce always more with higher bills for chemicals, prepared seeds and big consumming tractors…

higher yields were hiding higher inputs, smaller profit margins. It is without counting with the good sens of the peasant, which seems to come back galopping for 2010.

A true hope for the evolution of food security and development…

Surprisingly, the principle of the trials we developed as a sustainable alternativ to corn cultivation in Argentina, Marocco and Ethiopia, has just been validated by 2 authorities : the Rothamsted Research lab pour for agriculture, a world reference, inventor of some of the most reputed pesticides an herbicides used everyday on this planet, and the French Goliath of agriculture the agro-coop Terrena.

What protocoles are we talking about? To plant a community of plants, mycelium and bacterias at the same time as the staple crop. These plants will allow the crops to get all the fertilizer needed, while displaying all kind of strategies to protect from pests and hydric stress which are getting worse with global warming. A direct seedling of corn together with a broadcast sowing of legumes and graminea, no tilling, 10 days before harvesting the crop in place, which will then create a mulch which will be inoculated by good fungi and bacteria, to be controlled by specific prebiotic crops. A folly when we think about granpa’s agriculture, which surrounds us everywhere; but you need to try to be convinced once for all.

The first authority to bring water to our mill, are the brilliant Cambridge professors and the scientists of the Rothamsted Lab, by saying that from now on we need to be inspired by nature, to keep into account plant sociology their complementarities in bringing fertilizers and fighting against pests. In doing so they have double, even in some places multiplied by six their crops during trials they made in Kenya, in the past six months.

The second, came from the coop Terrena they declared in their annual report : ” 2015, is the objective when we wont need fertilizer, pesticide, nor herbicide” … “we will fight against plant diseases with bio-control by using natural mechanisms, the bio-control will also allow us to fight efficiently against pests as well.” and further “by using plants, microbiology, tree hedges, Fragmented Rameal wood (BRF) and funghi…”

Never enough, what a great report the one of Terrena. A good start for 2010.

You could almost hear the applauses of 400 million years of evolution an mutual living of plants, before our intervention with pesticides and herbicides, in the last 40 years.

But now let me think : hopefully Copenhaguen was a flop… three cheers for Copenhaguen.

Cheer witticism of course. But just imagine if  Copenhaguen did not failed. Among all announced measures, huge sums of money would have been given to Africa to repeat the same pattern of Agriculture in place in Europe, USA and Japan, for the last two generations. A true catastrophy : responsible for 30% of greenhouse gases in the world ; to repeat this at the scale of the planet would have been a disaster causing a global famine.

Copenhaguen has succeeded though, because of the mediatic enthousiasm it has provoked in the heads of many scientists, who got the guts to make public different prospects. And it is difficult for a scientist to say this in public. Have you ever heard about a worm, a bacteria or a funghi, financing a research unit in a University?

Our leaders are not aware of the existence of such protocoles, nobody has told them about.

A doctorate thesis has just been propsed to the INRA (French National Institute for Agronomic Research) about sowing different complementary plants in a corn field. Does not seem to be accepted yet. Lets’ hope that the INRA unit of Angers in France will support this. We will see what 2010 will bring. All our hopes are with them.

This has been known for a long time now, but hasn’t been realy accepted by the agriculture authorities. Do you imagine today’s agriculture with no chemicals? Less heavy tractors and devices, less commerce for the cooperatives, the unions, less debt for the peasant, less investments for the agriculture finance authorities and banks…

The economic pattern en vogue is today rather on the side of Jacques Attali, advisor to the French President Sarkosy, former advisor to President Mitterrand : “We have not authorised for the time being, the use of GMOs. The products which are used to feed animals are becoming increasingly costly; so we will have to take a decision : will we accept GMOs, like everybody does in the world, or are ready to support the massive increase of the cost of our food?”

Is Mr Attali ignoring that while he is speaking, France is already number one importer of Brasilian transgenic soy to feed its’ cows? He is probably unaware of this article in Time Magazin which shows that if you decide to raise your cattle with grass you can save the planet? Lets’ repeat it once more: a cow eats grass, not corn, nor soy. A recurrent theme in this blog.

Mr. Jacques Attali, for me, is “Mr. tractor” : Wherever he goes, he preaches the distribution of tractors to everybody… Now we know that these tractors will be able to spray herbicides for which American GMO seeds have been designed to resist, “like everybody does in the world”, Oups… dont forget that the French are number 3 in the GMO race, but so small in volume in comparison.

When you think about it, it seems so incredible to have succeeded in convincing the peasant good sense, to spray herbicides, which kill plants, in order to get a better harvest of plant. People who have done this are geniuses of commerce, arent they? Bravo.

70% of GM crops have been modifies to resist to these herbicides; so to sell always more herbicide.
The remaining has been created in order to integrate the Bacillus of Thuringis BT, a micro organism which kils coleopteras, i.e. beetles. But the beetle can evolve (remember Darwin?) and become resistant to BT. It is a bit what happened in India where since 2006 more than 200 000 peasants took on a credit to by BT seeds. The crops could not be harvested, destroyed by pest and diseases. 200 000 peasants committed suicide.

Bees now… in France, in the UK, Spain, or Marocco, 2/3 of the bee population in 2003 have disappeared in the 3 last years. People pointed on the new pesticides just put into action at this time; fair enough a pesticide is designed to kill insects, isn’t it? In France the INRA, our national watchdog, doute encorestill emits doubts. Through the French Association for Scientific Information and its’ Jan-March 2010 issue “Sciences and fake Sciences”, the doubt is maintained onthe role of insecticides to kill bee (bees are insects, remember). The solution proposed? BT GMOs, but Mr. scientist for agriculture, if the peasants commit suicide, will there be any agriculture left?

Potatoe : January 2010 Leeds University ask for the authorisation to plant GM potatoe in a Yorkshire field. They have modified a potatoe to resist to nematods, microscopic worms which have been living in the environment of potatoes for millions of years.
When you plant in the same space different cultivars of potatoes, if ever attacked a potatoe immediatly announces it to the others, which immediatly provoque an invasion of microorganisms which in turn eradicate the problem and feed on the nematodes. If you still have potatoes infested by nematodes today, it is more because of the way potatoes are cultivated. If ever you modifie them, you risk to take away the memory of how they can defend itself, which has been acquired by million of years of evolution. What is the point? These scientists dream that they will get a lot of money by selling to everybody in England their seed… Dont they remember the Irish famine was caused by the cultivation of one single type potatoe which has not been able to resist a mushroom, because it had forgotten about its existence?

This is grave. They are playing with the food security of millions of people. And now I take my cap of co-creator of the project “t’ikapapa” in Peru, together with A&L biodiversidad in Lima. “T’ikka papa” means “potato flower” in quechua. This project brought back the importance of the biodiversity of potatoe. How important it is to cultivate 320 varieties of potatoes at least, while securing to 8000 small farmers in the Andes the distribution in the Wong supermarkets, i.e. where the Peruvian elites are shopping and where they are ready to give a fair price to an extraordinary potatoe, to a true jewel. Our project won the 2006 FAO Gold medal (Food and Agriculture Organisation), the 2007 SEED AWARD from the United Nations and the BBC WORLD CHALLENGE FOR DEVELOPMENT 2007.

In the Andes, the wild potatoe grows among tagetes, the plant tagetes minuta, the common marigold, the anti nematode plant. Here you can see a wild potatoe in its original biotope, where we just took away dry tagets to take the photo. You find it right on the surface of the soil or beneath no more than 5cm. The tagetes essential oil avoid the development of these micro worms and provoques the presence of their predators.

It is simple. In the Andes, when you are on a terrain propitius to wild potatoe, a sandy soil close to a river, which is covered with dryed tagetes minuta, you bend to the soil and scrape it gently, potatoes are generally there. To be sure you’d better check previously in summer if you see any of the beutiful potatoe flowers in the area.

This is the original home of the potatoe. Tagetes minuta and potatoe have sealed a millenary deal. The student of Leeds University, are still trying to fput on it a foreign gene… A little trip on the field would have the best effect on them because the solution of their problem already exists.

It is a bit like inventing the thread to cut the butter. A shame to spend tax money on this. The response of the Soil Association, the British Environmental association, on the BBC was a bit similar to this.

But the British government has annonced last July 19 that it will send a 100 million pounds aid to Africa, in GMO seeds just after Bono’s big RED campaign to save Africa from poverty and Aids… In France, what are doing our ecologist ? To cite one very exposed by the media : to compensate our carbone Yann Arthus Bertran’s Foundation Action Carbone is panting 200 hectares of eucalyptus in Chili on Mapuche land, while he condemns in his film HOME the destructive effect of eucalyptus plantations. Further in his site he tells how he is learning to farmers in India how to till the ground and dig in it the remaining ashes from their cooking; the best way to diminish India’s staple crops and create famine.

Remember : the soil is alive, it is a living being. To much ash dug in the soil will transform itself into fossile carbon, uneatable by the bacterias which are the living beings of the soil. Little by little the excess of carbon will kill them and the soil will be unable to perform the exchanges of water and nutrients. It will become a desert little by little. The first sign of this transformation is the appearance of the tansy, tanacetum vulgare, which is the plant indicating the excesses of fossile carbon and the evolution of soil in that case, is towards a desert. I particularly say this to my Indian friends who are still used to, as in many other places in the world, burn their field before working on them. 10 000 years ago this is what the aborigenes in Australia have started to do. At this time the center of Australia was a lake. Today it is a desert.

So finally it is a good thing that Copenhaguen did not succeed, because we are not ready foe it.
Just give an eye to the last Agricultural Fair in Kabul this year, amazing no?

The lack of money in Africa will provoque more thinking before acting. With less money, perhaps one wil turn more on botanic, plant sociology, cell microbiology, micology… all these sciences which are openning our eyes to nature and are helping us to understand how we can get better chances to feed the planet. So better wait for Copenhaguen 2015?

But in the meantime we need to act and multiply the good results to prove the interests of these research : the next projects of the SOS SOiL team are in Marocco and Ethiopia. It has been question of forming the peasants at the boarder of Afghanistan and Pakistan… but for reasons of security will better pursue this task on internet.

Perhaps if Copenhaguen would have passed, sufficient credits would have been allocated to plant GM crops also there, thereby stopping all our effort to develop intensive crops with a better understanding of nature’s richness. Like UK’s foreign office who offered 100million pounds to test GMO crops in Africa which are forbidden in Europe.

Dear friends, an incredible thing happenned this week, on the side of the Copenhagen Climate Conference, a true mental climate change, heart warming, a real good news : the very respected Routhamsted Center for Research is communicating on the fact that there you dont need pesticide and fertilizer to produce corn.

Yes, you are not dreaming, the news is coming from one of the most advancedhigh tech agro lab in Europe, heir to the 2nd world war effort, to the tradition of the inventors of the Orange Agent, the GM crops, etc. Prof. John Pickett chief of the Pesticide and fongicide department, recently renamed “Biological Chemistry Laboratory” of the centeralso renamed “sutainable pest and disease management centre”, those who have invented the synthetic Pyrethrum, as welle as many other products that we find in the end in our plates, that we fix little by little in our body while eating vegetable and fruits. And suddenly without notice this package of pesticide and fertilizer is producing toxic algaes on our shores, killing the animals which eat them. we would like to transform this biomass but it is not yet a priority, hence the million euros it is costing already (800M euros in France only) (by the way dont see anything religious in the biomass).

Of course the very sympathetic professor Pickett is not denying his old love in inorganic chemistry and magic powders which make the joy of commerce and debt of the farmers. But now his speach is clear and radical on the BBC and on the web “Developping countries, you dont need pesticides and fertilizer anymore to grow your corn: we ahve designed for you the “Push & Pull” technique, which will enhance your crops by 50 to 600%.

What is it all about? To use what nature is offering us to get bthe best out of it at the lowest cost possible.

More than a generous soil and water, to grow, corn needs two things : nitrogen as fertilizer and to avoid the small worms of corn borer, little mothswho elected the corn pods as the five star hatchery of the century. Our brillant lab nspired itself from the research of the famous botanist Josia Braun-Blanquet, published in 1922 in his book “the plant sociology”; a book sold out, which I finaly was able to get when Bradford University’s library decided to clean up its shelves from its’ old books, judged unfitted for the modern farmer.

Still, Braun-Blanquet’s “the Plant sociology” as Rudolf Steiner’s “Agriculture courses” de Rudolf Steiner, the “inventor” of biodynamy, should be the two reference books for any farmer, to my opinion.

So what are we talking about? To plant corm together with two other plants : one to protect it against pests, the other to purvey fertilizer and attract all the insects predators of the pests.

The first is a gramineae, the Pennisetum purpureum, better known as the elephant grass, as it can reach 3m high and is the appreciated by all the dumbos of Kenya. It is also the preferate food of corn stem borers. the little moth which destroys corn likes it better than corn: but when it lay its eggs on it the intelligent plant knows exactly what to do : it produces a liquid which disolve the eggs. How impresive is nature, dont you find? Above all the roots of thos plant does not spread at the same level as corn, it goes far deeper and so it stops erosion and helps water to penetrate the soil far better while keeping humidity for the corn which really needs it in summer. Our herb is stopping soil perspiration. Not bad.

The second plant to be sown together with the corn is a legume, the Desmodium Ssp, a sort of bean. It is well known now, the legumes are champions to fix in the soil the nitrogen of the air, thanks to the nodosities they have in their roots and to the bunch of fungi mycelia it lives together with. So no need of fertilizer for the corn anymore. The Desmodium Ssp. also produce nice little pink flowers which attract all the tiny wasps of the area, like young teens around the last Galliano’s perfume. And guess what? The preferate food of these wasps is the little moths which threat the corns and which our elephant grass attracts in such quantities. Desmodium can fix up to 200 to 250kg of nitrogen in an hectare, Remember in Agriculture the excess is always worse than the countrary. In case there is two much nitrogen our legume are going to provoque the growth of asteraceae, little flowers and medicinal plants which also attract the helpfull tiny wasps and other pollinators.

So as we are planting, why not some asteraceae all around the field, like sunflower or the famous Yacon, Yacon root Smallanthus sonchifolia, and what about some radishes like the Raphanus sativus niger, or maca, Lepidium meyenii, which will bring their dose of sulfur and keep the predators away from our asteraceaes…

The result? Instead of just one crop of corn, we get more and better corn, fourage for the cattle, a crop of sunflower seeds, of yacon roots, black and horse radish and maca full of vitamins. Not bad at all.

Above all we will have a nice green field of year long, full of flowers and life. Because to get a good result we do not till the soil; the desmodium and the corn are sown direct and the rest simply cast on top of the soil. Not too tiring, is it? Above all the desmodium and the elephant grass is perennial. Once it is sown it there for years and the field will always be fertilized and humid.

At the same time as introducing this protocole to cultivate corn in Argentina, we started a second protocole to destress the paesant in charge of the kitchen garden. We called it the protocole of the Inca, as it is inspired from the ancien techniques found in the archeological remains around Puno in Peru, along the Titicaca lake, a technique which is still used by the Hopi indians in the States :

In the same rectangle we have sown all the different varieties of corn we could find, all different colours. The farmer wanted absolutly to till the land by hand, though we told us that it was of no use. You see if he does not work he feals he does not diserve his salary. Any work means to be paid, even if it useless.

At the foot of each stem of corn we told him to plant a pea a bean and a green bean, in between each rows we told him to pant pumkin and other cucurbitaceae. At the end of the row facing the sun a yacon root and opposite a sunflower, all around radishes and maca. His little garden suddenly transformed itself into a plat village, in which each plant has its role among the community in a perfect harmony, enriching the soil and preserving water. All grows perfectly well and in a few days we will get 7 crops instead of our only crop of corn.

With all this biodiversity of food we have now to be clever on gastronomy. If everybody follows this example, it gives hope for the future of food security of our planet.

This is what I call a good demo of agricultural design.

This example needs to be followed, to forget about all these scaremongers who want to sell their chemistry as an excuse to save the planet, when they destroy it. Thank you and bravo Professor Pickett.

Remember, December 1984, 25 years ago : Bhopal, hundreds of thousands of dead in one night and the environment destroyed for god knows ho long. In Bhopal, Dominique Lapierre is still fighting to help the survivors to recover and live decently ; apart from giving all the rights of his world best seller books to the foundation “City of Joy”, he travels the whole planet to spread the message so that it wont happen never again.

If we had explained to the Indian farmers that they could do without pesticide to accomplish the Green Revolution, it wouldn’t have happened. One does not build a factory that creates no benefit.

Remember the Zyclon B of the Nazi camps, 5 million dead ; more recently the organophosphorus gas projectiles received by the Kurdes of Halabja in 1988, Falloujah in 2004, Lebanon in 2006 … Here are the type of “side products” of the research you are supporting when buying pesticides. Think it over, pesticide and herbicide are meant to kill.

There is no use in killing nature blindly. Learn about life and how it works first. You can earn much more by applying the sort of techniques we have described today.

We are in the Province of Salta, North West Argentina, at the exact spot where started the Independence movement In Southern America, 200 years ago; in the Estancia from where the general Arenales left to liberate the Andes from his Spanish fellow citizen.

“ The Angel of victory is guiding my banner : follow his route towards independence and glory… go for Arenales : who flies from victory to victory, so that my army can secure on the battle field, the complete emancipation of the INCA SOIL.”

1812. This is how General San Martin, the founding father of Argentina, fine communicator as usual, adresses to the Calchaquis Diaguitas native Indians to introduce them his armoured arm, who is about to take over the banner left by the glorious Güemes, dying on the battlefield.

Salta is taken; the path of the Andes is now open.

To get rid of the Spagnards from the Old Continent, San Martin invents the White Inca : General Juan Antonio Álvarez de Arenales ;
He will serve just for this duty, as for the Inca, the world will quickly get rid of him, once his mission accomplished.

What the great San Martin didn’t realize, is that his words have created a myth much more crucial to Argentina’s soul : as the White Inca poped out of his hat, he launched the myth of the Gaucho, which is haunting South America’s poet and litterature since then, like Edgar A Poe’s raven.

In the beginning, a Gaucho, is the indian who responded to the call of San Martin. Gaucho comes from Huachu, in Quechua, the language of the Andes, it means orphan. The one who has no family to take care of and who can sacrifice himself to “the complete emancipation of the INCA SOIL”.

This day, an army rose from the mountains, moving towards the hope of a society where Indians would have the same rights as the whites. This is how Argentina’s Independance has been “sold” to the natives. This what the gauchos went for fighting for the Caciques who wanted to replace the former Spanish Caciques.

The gaucho, is bound to be the orphan of Liberty. Not a professional soldier, nor a man of arms at all, the man reveals himself on the edge of the apocalypse, ready to achieve any act of prowess to give his soul to justice. Then gently, goes back in the rank, to take care of his kin and cattle.

But if he has nobody to take care of, he will flee from his heart, his ungratefull mountains and stray in the immense Pampa, at the measure of his melancoly, his vanished expectations, his blues; in mother nature, his cursed sister.
The Nahual is the animal side of the native indian, the side which brings the gaucho Pablo out of himself, alone with his knife to slay down a 2,5m long cougar (head to tail); because it was eating his poultry, he became a jaguar.

Today it is Fiesta time. It is Santa Rosa de Lima, the patronness of the Army of Liberation, the Saint of the Estancia of the White Inca ; They all appeared from the mountains in their best costumes, shining new on their best peruvian horses, with their proud cedence march, to dismlay high up the colours of liberty.

Today the true Gaucho’s spirit revives :
200 years after the White Inca, the governor of the Province of Salta steps down of his helicopter to pay them an homage.

To pray with them.

For him, they killed two bulls, they put on fire during the whole week the village hoven big as a house, and prepared the Asado and the Guisado.

Here, to carve flesh, is “savoir vivre”. Eating is to kill. No detour, no shame in front of death.

The Guisado : all the tender bits of the animal are marinated in oil, vinegar, herbs, garlic and chillies; sown back in the beast to be roasted in the hoven for 12 hours..

The Asado : ribs and trips are prepared, hoofs packed, heart embroched, Bife de Chorizo, sirloin, everything goes to the BBQ on agonizing ashes, at the verge of extinction to cook for a slow and penetrating heat.

Each bit of meat, each bite of this banquet for a 1000 guests, we bite history, we chew a ritual, it is magic we are eating. The bull has been sacrified and shared as the ancestors used to. Wine, aguardiente and Ferney Branca is flooding.

The best day of the year. The discreet gaucho talks, smiles, slightly unveils his character ; but the woman? she stays at distance and marking respect. They are not at all what you call the staff canteen of the regiment. Very few women are gaucho and the more often they are the true leader of the gang; They wear the long skirt as real amazons : they are called the chinitas, the little chinese girls, becaus of the long days spent in the cattle’s dust which have slanted the eyes of her craggy indian face for ever.

Aguardiente, Ferney, Wine, We are here to praise the ancestors. Masters of the World, lassos are flying, bulls are caught and blocked, so and so, in fact it is far less precise than on a regular working day in the corral. The horses got it all : it is now leading and taking care of everything. Men are all absorbed in theeuphoria of their myth and the bull is jubilating. Like the Texan cowboy myth and his rodeo? Nothing to do with.

The gaucho, according to a writer from Argentina, is a myth similar to Faust, the Divine Comedy, a local Don Quichotte : Martin Fierro. Quite a name! Proud as the blade of San Martin ! To create his popular character popular, Jose Hernandez the famous writer, admired by the creme de la creme of the XIXth century litterature… turned him into a white man protecting the poor and the orfan from the evil black man. I slightly caricature, but it sales better. John Wayne as a Sioux doesn’t fit very well. Here a black means an Indian. According to the Argentinian imagery, very often it is better considered to be an Afro American, than an Indian. Here dignity has its’ scale, that an Indian could not climb. Hopefully things are changing.

Martin Fierro, this is how the young Jorge Luis Borges, the absolute icone of the Argentina’s blues, named his first gang… of dedicated poetry. The gaucho is for him the ultimate resource for the soul of South America. According to Borges and his friends, it must be part of the spirit of the young continent, in order to emancipate itself from the distant Europe, constant and tedious reference as his compatriots’ everyday reference. A need of space and fresh air.

But Borges remained a son of Ulysses and the gaucho a son of the Inca. They ignore each other. It is the drama of a continent. Although, along all the roads in Argentina, at the smallest track in the desert, there are little altars always under a caroub tree, dedicated to Gauchito Gil, the Robin Hood of the cactus. Nobody mentions it. It belongs to poor people’s culture. Any humble person exchanges with him a libation for a miracle. The Saint Gaucho will never be officially recognized.

Always a caroub tree. The tree which fertilizes the soil. Once more the Gaucho is full of resources. He shows the way; let us hear the Indian hushed up in our innermost thoughts.

By neglecting him, we are oblivious of so many things. We tend to use always the same methods without asking ourselves if it is realy adapted to the place. Stop. Lets bring back a little imagination. In 10 years Argentina has flouded its land with transgenic soy, without a single moment thinking of what and who was the victim of this sacrifice. This year unemployed Gauchos are protesting on the roads of Argentina. Halt. It doesn’t make sense. Lets’ open our eyes. At the eve of the Bicentenial of the creation of Argentina, lets’ change, lets’ listen to the indian, as we have a lot to gain from this exchange of ideas.

A toothpaste to protect Nature.

1200 different plants. This is what we found on the 100 000 acres where we work North West Argentina, in three weeks. In reality we found about 400; the botanist knows he does not see everything. When he spots a plant in the piece of nature he is studying for the first time, he knows that for each plant he finds, he misses two. The botanist is a sort of humble boaster.

1200 plants is 1/5 of all European plants. 6000 plants make the entire biodiversity of France, Britain, Belgium and Germany all together. On 6000 plants, maybe 2000 are eatable, 1000 are excellent. In a supermarket? You will get 27 at most. Abondant Nature and society of penury, a culture of poverty?

The last five years of his life, I used to meet, the more often I could, Theodore Monod, the famous naturalist as he left everyday his office at the Natural Science Museum of Paris. We used to stray and tease the absurd : all the jellyfish, shrimps and crabs along the Saint Louis Island, along the river Seine, to speak plant and liberty.

Biodiversity is a beautiful thing, so special that we want to protect it. A true family jewel hat we put right away at the bank in the depth of a tunnel in an island away from Oslo : the “Svalbard Global Seed Vault“, “the Noah Ark of our planetary biological inheritage” brags Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s prime minister. When you know that the inventors of herbicides participate in these experiences, where the hell is liberty hiding?

Noah’s Ark. After us the deluge. To live is to evolve. What is the point of taking away these seeds from life. A better way to preserve biodiversity would be to recognize it, use it, experience it, live it.

1200 plants in a domain which raises 7000 cattle, it is not the best way to protect Nature either. Why protect them anyway? Before we came nobody cared about these plants; they annoy everybody, the calves doesn’t eat it, it grows everywhere, invades the pastures. “Yuyus”, bad weeds. The realm of plants and the realm of farmers are two world apart, ignoring each other. Biodiversity frightens us, we fight it, eradicate it in order to have neat homogenous fields. Biodiversity? What is it? a great choice of mobile phones?

But when you are 3 hours away from the nearest supermarket and drugstore, what do you do? A single swelling river and you are stuck. Still everything comes from the city, except meat of course. If you are sick, you just wait until it stops.

Here, it used to be the land of the Calchaquis and Diaguitas Indians. In Argentina, it is well known, there is no native Indians left. The ones spared by the White Man have been cought back by influenza. In 1621, the Duke of Palota was already complaining to the King of Spain about the loss of work force, deceminated by the epidemies brought by the White Man.

The Native Indians of today does not recognize themselves in their ancestors. It is not fashionable to be a native Indian; as if everybody would be from Spanish ascendency. The White Man, Influenza, the other plague pointed by all archeological researches is tooth decay, tooth ache. Not a single Precolombian crane with decent teeth. When the new owners of the domain arrived here 5 years ago, nobody had good teeth. The priority was to bring a dentist.

Influenza, tooth decay? Here we have everything at hand to cure. But nobody uses them anymore. Old woman’s trick, Native Indian’s paraphernalia, no white blouse to look into your mouth, not serious.

Hopefully the money dedicated to research in pharmacology has vanished, the curiosity of people has risen, Claude Levy Strauss came to tell us that native communities could be as interesting as ours… a revolutionary “sans culotte” of the colonial spirit.

The Americans started a blocus on Cuba. In la Havane, bright doctors found themselves with no medicine anymore. The only salvation, to be witty; altenative knowledges, which they started to analyse with their scientific methods. Understand plants, listen to ancient herbalists… a little of ethnobotany can be fascinating : the encounter of botanic, medicine and its’ clinic tests, the ethnology of the local uses of plants. Man and Nature. A brand new world. The most brilliant brains of South America followed swiftly in the eighties setting the basis of a great evolution marching on.

Teeths?
There is maca, for the minerals and vitamins and a whole bunch of other plants to reeforce immunitary defences. Amaranth, with its calcium, magnesium, phosphorus…

Decay? Aloysia triphylla

Sensitive gums? Bulnesia sarmentoi

Influenza? Berberis buxifolia (against the virus of influenza A and B), the Eupatorium Ssp…

A sore throat? White Quebracho, Acanthospermum hispidum, Lomatia hirsuta, Turnera afrodisiaca…, Cough? Conyza bonariensis, Geoffroea decorticans…

Beware, you need to know how to use them. Apart from knowing them you need to study their toxicity; if they can cure, some can kill you. Without falling into a cheap psychose, you would better ask a specialist first.

The aim here is to have something available for first aid. Be selfsufficiant and not dependent from a faraway city. Understand biodiversity, be able to use it. For this you need first to put a name on each plant. It is the first step to protect it. After you have to learn the protocoles to be able to make plant tinctures to isolate the most interesting activ principles in order to preserve them and have them at hand to cure.

Tinctures, phytotherapy, Argentina, the world pioneer in transgenic soy, is not the better market to start with this sort of natural medicine. We need to think in something else more simple. While discussing with the adorable old man taking care of the vegetable garden, about the ancient ways to chew coca leaves, a plant came to my mind which could replace calcium bicarbonate, the base of toothpaste. This is it. We need to design a toothpaste; a product used everyday by everybody.

Telephon calls, meetings with the most respected dental lab in Argentina, then with the Dental University of Tucuman and the Foundation of Plant research in Argentina. It seems that they are all looking for an alternativ toothpaste to the Fluoride ones which are being critisized for their impact on the environment.

The deal is settled. Five formulas are created. The University and the foundation will study them and check their inocuity, the eventual counter indications. We are at the verge of releasing the first organic and fairtrade toothpaste. Probably one of the first product made from ethnobotany with the collaboration of the recipients of this ancestral culture, certified by modern science.

Everybody to your toothbrushes, Thanks to you 40 000 acres are going to stay preserved.

What the hell can a cow dream about?

Simple : about this

And this

herbs

But here in the Argentinian North West, in summer you cant dry tadalafil no prescription it, it rains too much, it rots.

We already made the design of a solar barn to dry it up. But who wants to put a dime on grass.

What a weird idea? Grass? It is not serious.

Can’t smoke it.

So we reviewed the copy of our report and came back with a new one : the barn is less glamourous, less techno, it lacks this space shuttle look that farmers like so much, with buttons, computers, noise… now it works with absolutly no machinery, only sun and some small tricks of course :

The hay is thrown on a big rolling walkway, made of recycled farm nets, actioned by a pedal and simple machanism which makes it go 2meters by 2 meters, just enough to spray the hay evenly. The barn is 30m by 10m. Once the sort of pathway is totally covered, the barn is shut the more hermeticly possible. The sun heats the roof, and the air flies away through special chimneys, which look like metallic chef whirling hats; a bit like the mad whirling dervich cook. By doing so it creates a depression, which attracts the air coming from apertures under the hay. The hay is relatively close to the roof so it gets the heat from it, but the air coming from under and passing through, prevents it from cooking. A piece of cake.

The trick? The air coming and going is accelerated by a vortex-like system of cones continuously renovating the air at a fast pace to dry it up quickly. The interior of the barn is cleverly organised to reenforce the whirlwinds, avoiding dead angles which could create counter streams and with small devices to gear humid condensations at the right places. Done, the rabbit is in the hat. The barn is 100% controled by the sun.

It was crucial for us to persevere in this project and insist with it instead of letting it be immolated it on the altar of GMO progress. Just look at what will happen to the cattle in winter if we dont react… new born calves and pregnant cows forced to eat the ground ; just like the people starving in Haïti, you would say?

No, not as bad, here the cows are more lucky than human beings… engineers are taking care of them. All around the world, young agronomists have been taught that you need to feed cattle on corn. You would not even think to give them grass, would you? You cant get a better value than with corn; and it is so easy to grow with GMO technologies; you dont have to think, just buy the seeds, the herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers that go with them, machinery to spray everething on your well compacted and flat field. If you cannot afford all this, you will easily get a loan. Good boy, you are now sustaining a whole economy. Yes you can.

Hopefully, things are changing, slowly. One thing: just remember that corn produces more fat than meat, which is very good when your cow does not move; if not, it will loses it. It is probably why we have created feedlots, sort of concentration camps in which animals are stockpiled to be force fed without moving. 60 to 80% of Argentinian meat is produced this way, same with Brasil, same in France.

The dream team is with the GMO soy cattle-cake. You press the soy oil for cars and give the remaining to the cows. 70% of the cows in France are fed on this. France is now number one importer of GMO soy cattle cake from Brasil. GMO crops are forbidden in France, but the cows which are eating GMO soy in their barn without being able to move, are they GMO? Of course not, logic.

“Colonizar a Amazonia pela pata do boi” “conquer Amazonia by the hoof of the ox”, the great motto of the Brasilian politicians since the seventies is more hype than anytime. To feed each French you need 458sqm of Amazonian soy, according to Greenpeace. And it goes on, the consumption of meat in this year of crisis has risen by 28% in France and since the seventies soy production in Amazonia went from 0 to 21 million hectares. Progress never stops.

But back to our cows; here once the corn has grown, in order to keep food for winter, you let it dry up on its’ pod or you convert it into silo bags; the big black plastic bags laying with big old tires on top, a bucolic neat countryside. The corn is crushed and put to fermentate until the next winter. This method works perfectly in a laboratory, but in nature it is not always easy to control and sort the bacterias which are going to produce the lactic acids and the yeast which are going to produce alcohol. Oh, sweet little devils.

The young calves you see here are totally drunk, loaded, not a single one can walk straight, “they dont need to drive, its’ not too bad” Would you say? In fact alcohol hits directly on the liver which is the place where the immune defenses are constructed, a sort of control tower of your immune system. Not the best thing to do do when you start in life, isn’t it? These calves are going to spend the rest of their life at the vet. To avoid spending a little more today, you will spend a lot more later.

The key problem in Argentina is here : the price of meat is blocked by the government; 20 cent euros a kilo. You cant make a living anymore by producing meat, everybody abandons. “Only the ones on natural pastures can cope”, tells me an agronom engineer. But everybody carries on with corn and soy. Argentina just announced in November 2009 a deficit of 3 million calves. No you are not dreaming, we are talking about Argentina and agronomers… a famous French comic used to say “You put them in a desert, 3 weeks later they come to clame for more sand.”

To produce 1kg of meat you need 7 to 10 kg of food. Quite a carbon footprint; here, according to the calculations we made, on the yields we got this year 12t/ha i.e. 8t/ha dry of GMO corn; I cant say if it is due to the seeds or local conditions. On the other hand well managed pastures can provide 20 to 60 tons/ha. Once it is sown, it comes back every year. No use to buy more seeds, to plant, just harvest. Between this and corn, what would you choose? Corn of course. Logical?

Cuttlefish pronounced with the Provence accent, soupions, is already an invitation to feast, a descrete call to pleasure… fenel, garlic, coriander, le basil, a little raw ham … but above all, olives, belly down, are such in a hurry to be there first, that they arrive all broken down “cassée” we say here…

Yes, there is one time in the year, when the olive tree, gives the best of itself, the fresher, the more vivid ; when its fruit is the most ferm and cast the more green aromas. Now or nether. September, October, November, it is the right time to stray in the Alpilles, around les Baux de Provence, to pick the big plumpy green Grossane. The more you pick them, the more they will make you fall.

The Alpilles… Mr Seguin and his goat… a refuge for Florentine conjurators, away from the Medicis revenge; Nostradamus used to live here : “the day the world will come to its end water will rise up to the stele of the Mas de la Dame”…  The Mas de la Dame right in the center of les Baux, THE delicious organic WINE along with its’ perfect olives…

In Provence in the old times, the midwife used to recieve the new born in her arms oined with olive oil and then would dip him in a bath of red wine…

This fantasy could be at the origin of today’s recipe : born in oil, redished in wine…

Prepare the olives, finely cut with garlic and fenel… fry in the wok with olive oil and salt, some celery leaves chopped to their bare element, swiftly, easy.

Horace, in his frugalous moments, was mad about them, Martial used them as the best side meal for drinking. They could ennoble even a duck :

Today it is the turn of two little cuttlefish, who did not asked anything to anybody, but they merit… the wok, same thing, swiftly al dente. You dress them on your dish. Fill them with the cooked olives from head to the jarettière, which is easy to find as there are eight legs in an octopus.

In Béarn, we used to call the little balls, “oulibètes”, little olives. The lady soothsayers of the temple of Mylitta used to suck so well the olives to their bones, displaying the most delicate skills in front of men holding their breath to discover their future. Mylitta was the Aphrodite of the Great Hore of Babylon. It was the duty of each lady from the good society to go there and prositute herself, once a year. Mylitta, pleasures for the mouth; Mylitta, the birth of militants ?

Calm down, give the raw ham a heat in the wok; when crispy, a sip of sweet red wine, “Mas Amiel” from Maury. Remember: born in the oil, redished in the wine. A little coriandre will conclude the prophecy with delicacy.

The olive is the “flower of Joy” in the Sonnet of the asshole from Verlaine the Poet :

” It is the gaping olive with the cuddling flute,
The tube in which descend the celestial pralin,
A womanly Chanaan burst in a clammy win!”

In reality, olives are less mouth irritations, than tactile pleasures : “Gracious olives polished with fingers to become a dove or a marine conch : green, so many, so pure tits of nature…” Thank you Pablo Neruda : the important is to given them always a virgin, cold and prime pressure.

A Greek, a Roman, never likes them too mature. The “omphacine” is the secret of longevity, the viscous juice from the green olives, harsh and fresh. You oint the athletes before the Games with it. Honey inside, sourgreen outside, the winner recieves the oil from Athena and the crown from the olive tree, the “Akeratos” tree, the “one with no horns”, the eternal being.

It was the smell of the olive oil on the body, which used to differenciate the slave from the free man, divine sweat, dew of living gold. It is called “fruttato” oil in Italy, the “S’Olivariu” of Cesare Samugheo from Cuglieri in Sardigna, still vibrant and bitchy, as a revenge from being picked too early. In Mallorca, it is the mythic DAURO cropped only from trees older than 200 years, just after the September rains which tamed them and convinced them to uncover unbelievable ranges of subtleness. But pinacle of fantasy, until now, one would think that the olive was jumping from green to black on Newton’s colour spector… At Dauro’s the olives are cropped when they reach the colour of flesh.

Treasure of life, treasure of flesh, when the sea encounters the mountains, the soothsayer orders to cheer with the wine Stèle Blanc 2008 from the Mas de la Dame…… still waiting for the water to come. TRINK…

Grains of amaranth…

a neglected food, 2 times more nutritiv than milk in proteins, calcium, magnesium, etc. which brings above all all the mollecules that allow you to assimilate and take advantage of all these goodies…

Nature brings us all the ingredients to solve any food crisis present and to come, but isn’t our belief in progress, in a manipulated chemical and allmighty agriculture, realy letting us realise this fact?

Today we are going to make a risotto with amarante instead of rice.

It doesn’t exist so we will name it. Amarantto? a good name but slightly pretentious for such a little and discrete grain as the amaranth. : <strong>”la marante” in French means the funny one ? The odd word for this is “rigolo”. So let it be named the Rigolotto.

At the first encounter grains of amaranth have a slightly earth smell, like a teddy bear which spend 20 years under ground in a treasure box. A good broth will get rid of this quite nasty smell.

As we are going to prove that it can be a meal that costs nothing and which os more nutrient than a steak, off we go in the Sarde maquis for a little walk in nature to pick anything good we find. An hour after, here we are with a douzain of different families of mushroom and wild plants, wild rocket salad, chenopode, amaranth leaves, cousteline, pursiane portulacca olaecera, nettless… and more.

First thing, wash the amaranth grains in water to get rid of the saponins. Some people dont like them.

Meanwhile start the broth with a garlic sofrito and all the mushpods. Once everything groweling with nice noises throw the pursiane plants, the chenopode and amaranth leaves, nettles, and cold water. slow fire, a hat and forget it for a while.

The amaranth and chenopode leaves where used by South America’s native indians when they had problems of decalcification, and toothaches. These properties are confirmed by todays medecine which has also proved there hipoglucemiant an astringent properties (Conforti et al. 2005), bringing as well essential amino acids to man… Just imagine it nourishes you while lowering the level of sugar in your blood and helps you to get fit… perfect, no? so make it swiftly, without a boil.

The pursiane, Portulacca olaecerae, is the Mediterranean plant for long life. Here Sardegna there is a village where 60% of the population is betwin 95 and 112 years. Guess what they eat? Wild plants among which this famous pursiane, the icone of the Cretan diet…

Now we prepare some little starters. You never know, you might have surprise guests that might be upset with their first encounter with this poor dish of amaranth. People are generally very conservative when it comes to food. What’s this stuff? Is it really eatable? We are first hungry with our eyes. And here in Ital if you have no antipasti, it is as of there is no dinner.

Tiny Peperoncini stuffed with anchovies crushed with a fork with onions, leaves of cousteline, the best salad in the world – sort of small dendelion with round tipped leaves – and buttons of capers freshly picked from the walls of the church of the village.
We put aside a bit of this crush of herbs, without anchovies this time: some rocket and cousteline chopped and added to a bit of the cold Rigolotto will make the best Taboule.

Why not an eggplant caviar as well, not much work for a good result. Grill the eggplants sliced in two, without forgetting to burn the skin. Yes you can burn… With a fork mulch it with some garlic and olive oil, fruttato is the best olive oil for this, with its’ sour and spicy taste. Wake up egg plants… a bit of chilly will help. As we are in Sardegna we add a bunch of basil leaves. There might be some people on diet as well, so lets give it a younger life to this old recipe : add water and mount it into an emulsion, just like a light mayonaise. The problem then is that it is so good, that you end up eating all the pot.

Now to the serious part : the mushrooms.

Before, importantissimo, a walk to the pharmacy to check them all out incase you dont want to spend your last night in front of a funghi. The pharmacist was not from the area. Slightly unexperienced… a double check in neede at the hunter’s bar.

There, the barber, yes, like in the medieval times, at the time of Ambroise Paré, here it is the old barber who know best the different mushrooms. In his sardo italian grumble, I must say I didnt get a single name for the mushrooms. Anyhow, all the hunters around heiled his impartial and sharp judgement. We wont die tonight.

The parasol mushroom, macrolepiota procera, under the grill. 10 minutes each side, crushed garlic, salt, olive oil. Done.

All the other funghi, one by one in the pan with, olive oil, salt and parsley for the lucky ones.

We named some of them witchmushis… to give a name it always reassure you … They are more red than the earth, and yellow inside which turns dark indigo blue just as you cut it… by magic… a bit spooky no? A bit of toad blood and bat nail? But after a while in the pan they come back to yellow, the flask witch belly comes back to normal texture, rather crispy indeed… delicious.

Back to the rigolotto :

Sofrito of garlic, grains of amaranth, broth. Start eating the antipastis, en revenant de temps en temps pour touillerand come back from time to time to turn your dish. You have more or less 16mn. Be carefull not to make antipasti to easy and quick to eat…

Done. On the side you keep two spoons of it that you make cold quickly to mix with the crushed herbs of the Taboule, and everybody is happy..

With a good dry white wine. Here we have the Semidano of Mogoro Sicilia. Humm…

Natural pasture is the best food for cattle.
How odd it is to have to repeat this. It seems so obvious, that people tend to forget it.

Cows get from it all they need to build up their immune system, all the proteins they need for their body and the milk to feed the veals.

Here, under the Tropic of the Capricorne, near Salta, North West of Argentina, it only rains during the austral summer months: December, January, February. That’s it. In three months we get 1000 to 1500 mm, approximatly what Brussels or Brest, gets in a whole year. Summer in the Tropics is also a time when the sun is vertical right up your head, the nearest from earth.

These spectacular conditions give record growths to the grass.
In general the balance between proteins and sugars (fibers) is achieved just when grass flowers. This is about the right time when you can harvest and get well balanced food for winter.

Naively, we could think that corn would be better and give bigger crops… it is  just the contrary.
First corn is not the best food for cows, it brings too much quick sugars which turn into quick disapearing fat or milk without making muscle. Second in our field we get crops of 8 to 12tons/hectare corn as with pasture we reach 20 tons to even 40 depending on the areas. This without having to seed, work on the soil, fertilize, herbicide, nothing… just harvest.
I still dont understand why people continue to grow corn to feed cattle? and above all this single food diet based on corn is nothing in comparison with a diversified meal, mixing all kinds of nourrishing and medicinal plants; a true balanced meal.

But to be able to use hay all winter, it needs to be dry; almost mpossible when it rains 2 hours everyday. We need to find a solution.

The solar barn. The roof to protect against the rain is turned also as an oven to heat the air, which is then propelled under the wet thatch to dry it slowly.

The hay is brought in and distributed by a mechanical fork, which then brings it, once dryed up, to the machine which makes the rolls.

Then the rolls are kept in the other part of the barn to be then distributed where the cattle are.
Here we are talking of 7 000 heads to feed in winter when the grass does not grow anymore, on a surface of about 40 000 acres dedicated to grazing. Which means a lot of kilometers to drive and distribute the rolls everywhere.

500 m3 of grass can be dryed every week, about 200 rolls. In 10 weeks the barn is filled up and we need to get rid of the rolls and distribute them all around.

This is how it works : the air enters the roof to be heated and expelled under the wet grass. The humid air is then expelled out on the top of the roof. A little thermodynamics is needed to calculate the flux of air, so that it does not burn the thatch and that it can stay at about 10°C above outside temperature. At midday, the strengh of the sun gives 15kW/m2, a lot. The speed of air must adapt to it.

The only disadventage of this barn, is that it depends on machines, a powerfull fan and a big fork, running back and fourth, on its’ 30meters long rail… it needs too much electricity to be produced by solar power, it would be too expensive. The machines run on a power generator with diesel. This is why we started our plan to produce biodiesel with micro algaes feeding on agriculture waste… The nearest gas station is 2 hours away by car.

Artichoke choc-choc? Aubergine gigine? no … the bean, the one and only “haricot”, precious jewel of the Provence cuisine, has the priviledge of being named “Coco”… In case you are craving for the recipe just zap directly to the end. Otherwise…

It has scared many more people already : Brillat Savarin, “Curse on the coco beans, curse the swamp beans …” (the physiologie of taste)… dull Northeners as well… An authentic “a meal of vilain”, the fair accomplice of garlic, anchovy and basil… of the late summer… the glory of never ending sun sets… a salvo to the belated pending pink flamingoes of the Salins de Giraud, still asking to themselves if it is really necessary to go back to Africa… the comfort of an ending sunny day in the Calanques of Marseille, battered by the Mistral wind, which, without telling, could not refrain from casting some of the chilly North Sea in the Méditerranean, … COCO…

COCO is not only a perfume… it is the ultimate artifice of the Adonis festival, for which all spices are getting sharpened, ready for a whole week of complete licence, all five senses at their extremes… women, husband, as you please… the 15th of August, festival of the virgins… pleasure without procuration, without procreation… decadent Rome, elegant Rome. Adonis has never been considered exactly as a politicaly correct company… but all ends in a burst of COCO beans, bean heads, bean brains… to harrypotter?… no! “Haricoter” : in Auvergne, center of France, it stands for ” to tear apart a piece of lamb”, as well as “to caress lovingly a woman”… the Auvergnat traditional dish is “the  lamb haricot”… nothing to do with these poor fellows confined in their barracks, zealously left to their dry kidney beans . Same with the “Bean Hostal”; it used to be the nickname of the town prison and the “fayot” a bean head military who signs up for another go.

However in Catalogna, the fasting delicacy, is the mounjo, moungeta, moungete, mogett,… a nun… a nice little nunny; cant mistake with the COCO bean, can you? Although the “nun’s fart” is a standard traditional cake : an ivorish carnation under swelling veils, plumpy and generous, propitious to convert anybody. The Coco bean, on the contrary, is the poor man’s organ with it’s ever going exhalating happyness. Hilarious. Hi, that’s me. Take Five.

If Romans used it to put an end… to sublimate a whole week of orgie in order resume the everyday life… it is a Florentine woman, Catherine of Medicis, who made it famous. Her uncle of Pope, Clement the VIIth, former Jules of Medicis, has given monk Valeriano a sack of this COCO treasure, recently discovered in Peru, as dowry to Henri II and his queer court. The valeriane is a plant which excites cats, but make man sleep. The ecclesiastic canon Piero Valeriano was not exactly a wacky guy, but the plethorical germination of the coco bean truly made him jubilant; and indeed the multicolor jewels have been a real benediction for the famous sister of Alexander of Medicis.

“It was shown to me… a true little bean” Gasparine, Pot-Bouille, Zola, Nana… a dry bean lacks definitly the voluptuous curves, the almighty nude, love handed flesh of the cook bean. Worse, today’s master word is lean, quick, slim, slender… the GREEN bean has become the “New Look”, modern times’ credo, a boaring belief that turns women into fleshless anemic poor things.

“So let us seed until it is still time to,

Cause the bean song is one of the shortest”

Sings Georges Guétary in  Florished Road of Francis Lopez. Olé! Besitos.

The Recipe :

Ingredients : coco beans, veggies, spices, and an anchoiade base (anchovy paste).

Options : poutargue or basil, make your choice.

A piece of advice : to be prepared before going to bed for the next day.

Onion sofrito with garlic and veggies : On Arles’ market we have organic “Thai aubergines”, “snake zucchinies”, ” Royal Thai basil with citronnella at the Laosian stand. Yes we are lucky. The sofrito, always with olive oil. May I remind you that the best olive oil in France is the one of Montfrin castle, gold medal 2006&2008 of the general agriculture competition, distilled by the great Jean René de Fleurieu … excellent.

The coco bean does not mingle with the mediocre. When the sofrito is done : throw the beans. Water, the less calcar possible. Cover, cuddle. slight fire, inexistant, protct it fro the flames with thick diffuser. At a slight boil, you have the shakes. Stop. The best is to use a thick iron pot to keep the heat longer and slow.  Slowly my sweety coco.  It is 3 O’clock in the morning, turn off everything. Cover. Next morning, you release the cover. Yummy. What a nice day. Give a little heat. Not too much.

Back in the evening . The serious job starts: according to your mind,  crush a handfull of basil, or lard micrometric slices of Poutargue, the dry fish row from Martigues. Once your spirits recovered, grab a sauce pan, crushed garlic and olive oil. Put the juice of the coco with a Mexican chipotle chile.

Now the anchovy paste: dilute and emulsionate in the sauce. It will be the salt of your COCOs. Off the fire. A big breath and when you feel it is not too warm anymore mix 2/3 of the fresh basil or the poutargue. Serve while spreading the remaining 1/3. (without eating the poutargue hiding, bean head…)

Sorry I could not refrain…

La BOUILLABAISSE des Calanques de Marseilles

Boui Abaisso, the boiling soup, low on the warm cinders,

or Boui Peis, fish soup in Provençal; Bullit de Peis in Ibicenco…

Boui, Abaisso!, It boils, you dip the fish… the true solution, with the accent, please.

But fish is expensive and rare… the delicate abbess, queen of the art, praised by Joseph Mery, the gastronom poet from Marseille in XIX° century, friend of Dumas and of the Goncourt, used to say :

” Nothing should be more expensive, in this life; after this,

Nothing more expensive than a marble stone, with four cypresses.”

So, before the poem, we need to do

A serious coulis, as foreword too,

Of hundred little fish, from this morning,

swiftly slowly on a smokeless fire distilating,

A liquid treasure and fragrant broth;

Here then will come and melt, delicatly,

All needed for the aroma and flavor, spicy :

Sprigs of saffron, a bunch of fenel,

Pepper from Lebanon, crackling laurel,

Salt, the friend of man, and the delicious urchins,

That our dear Arenc feed his bassin.

When the foam is simmering on this immense coulis,

Coocked to its’ point, the poem starts, Si !

To this Phocean treat, accomplished indeed,

Indispensable, and  before all, we need

The Rascass, fish, of the most vulgar;

Alone on a grill, it is just good for the mortar,

But in the bouille-abaisse, it suddenly spreads

Marvellous flavour which goes to our heads.

The rascass fed on the bunches of syrtles,

In the bays covered with laurel and myrtles,

Or just under a rock of flowers of thym,

Bringing all perfumes to the table of this festin.

Then the fish away from the harbour, at a distance

In the depth of the reefs, the red mullet for instance

The delicate Pagel, the john dory suculant,

Favorite game of the sea bass, the arrogant,

Last, the galinette, with its eyes of old dogs,

And many more, forgotten by the ichtyologues,

Fine fish for which Neptune, in his flaming sky,

Leaves the trident for the fork, not a bit shy

Frivolous travellers and juges illegitimate,

For a 60 cent bouille-abaisse, never be candidate;

Go to the Chateau Vert, order a supper;

Say : ” I want a good meal, the best for the upper;

send the divers in the marine rocks, deep,

To ravish my senses with the perfume, divine and sweet;

Serve yourself with parangre of the Romans and from the Greeks, the thyse ,

Tomorrow is another day; hush dont tell the price ! “

Le Gourmet – Joseph Méry (1798-1866) – translation by lesfoodingues

EVERYTHING IS SAID.

Firm meat fish : spiny lobster, the strange cicada, the rare red gambas, the galinette, the gurnard, the weever, the vaudreuil and the monk fish, conger, fielas and all sorts of crabs…

the delicate meat fish : the whiting, the sea bass, the roucaou, red mulet, mulet, john dory…

Scale and clean them  (except the red mullet, the wood cock of the sea and all the crustaceous) lay the two kind of fish on separate plates.

In a wide pan, a sofrito : 5 fresh onions chopped with their herbs; a whole garlic, two tomatoes, thyme, wild fenel, a dash of absynthe, a leaf of laurel, flat parsley, orange or citrus peels (use the iranian dried limes if you dont have fresh organic ones). A good chile ancho, negro or pasilla from Oaxaca, Mexico.

Pour all the fishing of the day, small rock fish with no ceremony, except a glass of pastis for yourself. Once the soup ready, first cook the firm flesh fish and then the delicate flesh, each time adding a spoon of olive oil and bringging to a boil to emulsify. Serve one fish at a time and share it with your friends. At the end serve the broth.

OR

Put a toasted bread piece rubbed with garlic on the side of the plate, put one piece of firm flesh fish and one piece of delicate flesh fish on its side. A cup of soup some parsley and serve.

Dont forget your glass of pastis or Casanis on the side of the furnace, as you might dry up more quickly than the fish…

Two important things: the diversity fo the rock fish and the ad hoc timing for each fish (a monk fish has not the same timing as the john dory…)

Third essential point : olive oil, garlic and broth ; the three elements which allow the perfect emulsion, garlic providing the tensio activ mollecules for the perfect texture. The true bouillabaisse requires quite some garlic and olive oil to succeed.

Tonight in total intimity we decided to dedicate a simple homage to the small fish fished just under our cabin in the Calanques de Marseille this morning. As we did not fish any big ones (see we are not always boasting in Marseille…) we remplaced them with the stupendous red coco beans, cooked slowly during hours in onions and chile pasilla from Oaxaca. We also replaced the garlic rubbed bread with Sare fish fillets fished and BBQed the day before, which we spread with garlic…

Sorry you cannot eat this in a restaurant; though if you find it in a restaurant tel me and I will rush there immidiatly.