I hope you don’t mind my diverging a bit from the subject of this blog to share some photos of my recent trip to Brittany.
First, a produce stand at the weekly market in Dinan:
Above left: Beets are usually, if not always, sold cooked. Above right: A liquor stand in the Dinan market features whiskey made from buckwheat.
A seafood stall offered various fishes and . . .
. . . spider crabs and scallops. We chose fresh mackerel for dinner.
At the market we saw cured meats in abundance . . .
and one stall (below) sold blood sausage stewed with apples–a fantastic combination.
This was lunch after a trip to the market. Every day we drank cider, a different brand or style each time. The alcohol content ranged from 3 to 6 percent.
For some people the local market isn’t enough; they grow their own produce in home or community gardens. The community gardens we saw had big plots, each with its own shed. Above is a community garden in the castle town of Fougeres.
One day we went to see the oyster beds at Cancale . . .
. . . and bought some oysters, of course, for dinner. Robert chose the salty wild ones.
At left is one kind of oyster we’d never seen before, “little horse foot,” the native oyster. Does it have an English name?
Finally, here’s a picture from St-Malo, on the coast. We didn’t go into La Maison du Beurre, but no doubt it offered some of Brittany’s famous salted butter.
Salted butter?! Our hosts at dinner one night were surprised we’d had it before–in America, yet! Salted butter is unique to Brittany, no?
Actually, we loved Breton butter not for its salt but for its rich flavor and yellow color–a color that comes not from annatto but from grass in the cows’ diet.