Changing seasons

A project I’m presently working on - a magazine called Terrific Terroir - has me out and about talking to fruit & veg growers in Geneva. It’s particularly interesting to see what produce they’ve got now, in this transition period between winter and spring.

Denise Adler of Directdujardin in Bellevue, who sells at the organic St. Jean market in Geneva City (market times at the end of the post), was still featuring fruits et légumes de garde - i.e. fruit and vegetables that keep. These are harvested in the fall, and stored at appropriate temperatures - usually very cool - for consumption during the winter months. Examples: potatoes, celery root, Brussels sprouts, some types of squash, carrots, onions, pears, apples, walnuts, and, yes, kiwi which grows very well in Switzerland.

At her 19^th century farmhouse in the tiny hilltop hamlet of Malval in Dardagny, Eliane Pottu showed me how she uses a special type of pear called a poire à rissole, also a winter ‘keeper’. This variety of pear not being particularly pleasant to eat - even when ripe its flesh is hard and grainy - Mme. Pottu makes a cookie filling with it using raisins, candied orange and lemon zest, some sugar and cinnamon, and cooking the mixture for hours until the deep red result has a thick consistency.

She then strains the mixture and makes the cookies, called rissoles, in much the same way you’d make ravioli. She puts a dollop of filling on a slim, square shape of (cookie) dough, then brushes the borders with egg white so that the dough she uses to cover the filling sticks. She then cuts the edges with a serrated wheel called a roulette. Unlike ravioli though, she cuts the cookie edges like a half moon, not a square. The cookies are classic winter favorites in Geneva, not available in bakeries, but Mme Pottu has started selling her pear filling in jars because she notes a resurgence of interest in traditional recipes.

Laure Chavaz of Marché à la Ferme in Veyrier had some fine rampon - also called mâche and doucette, and of course known as Nüssli in the Swiss-German part of the country. In English, that’s lamb’s lettuce, and a classic way of serving it in Switzerland is with lardoons, hard-boiled egg and dressing. But its slightly nutty flavor is really well-suited to serving sprinkled with pine nuts, too.

Lamb’s lettuce is actually in season from November through March: it pokes its crispy greenness through the wintry soil. Pickers not only get the backbreaking work of leaning down to gather it up but in icy temperatures too.

I had a fascinating visit too with Marie-Thérèse Delétraz in Saconnex d’Arve. She sells at the Rive market. At this time of year, she specializes in early spring greens that grow wild on the farmland where she cultivates her produce organically. These include wild garlic (ail de l’ours, Bärlauch) and dandelion (dent de lion or, vulgarly, pisse en lit, Löwenzahn).

She’s also still selling root or winter vegetables. She specializes in unusual and heirloom varieties that include:

Jerusalem artichoke, topinambour, Topinambur

Parsnip, panais, Pastinak (making a come-back here, but of course a great UK favorite; Mme Delétraz tells me Britishers living in Geneva are her biggest clients for this veg)

Rutabaga, rutabaga, Steck oder Kohlrübe

Tuberous-rooted chervil, cerfeuil tubéreux, Wurzelkerbel

Turnip-rooted parsley, persil racine, Wurzelpetersilie

Winter radish, radis noir, Winter-Rettich

Yellow carrot, carotte jaune, gelbe Rübe (Rübli)

Unusual veg like these are becoming very stylish, for cooks at home and restaurant chefs, sometimes also for their color. The other day, I was served a lovely bright mix of cubed white radish and yellow and orange carrots, and of course if you serve purple potatoes like the Vitelotte in the image above (they become a pretty mauve if you mash them and put milk in) it is going to add a vivid dash to the plate. Mme Delétraz also grows the Vitelotte variety.

Later in the year, her summer assortment will include veggie garden favorites, head lettuce, eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes like Rose de Berne, an old Swiss variety. And by the way: she has recipes that she hands out for all the unusual varieties listed above, but they’re in French only.

Markets:

Denise Adler, St Jean market (organic produce only), corner of Chemin Furet and Avenue de Gallatin, Thursday 4-8:30 p.m.

Eliane Pottu sells her “farce aux poires pour rissoles genevoises” from her farm, Domaine des Crêts, in Malval, Dardagny, T 022 754 12 64. A 220 gr. jar costs 4.20 Swiss francs. Call and tell her how many jars you want; if she’s not going to be there when you come by, she’ll prepare the order and put it out for you - you can slip the money into the mailbox.

Laure Chavaz, Marché à la Ferme, 62 Chemin des Marais, Veyrier, Thursday from 3-7 p.m.

Marie-Thérèse Delétraz, Rive market, Boulevard Helvétique, Wednesday and Saturday 6:30 a.m.-1 p.m. (1:45 p.m. on Saturday).

Image of Vitelotte potatoes from VisWiki.com (public domain, image creator Dr. Schleiermacher)