Book review: Bellahsene
May. 1st, 2025 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
de_eekhoornCueillette de plantes et fruits sauvages comestibles en Méditerranée - Zohra Bellahsene
[Gathering wild edible plants and fruit in the Mediterranean]
Plants I have identified and tried based on this book:
calament nepeta - Herb, looks somewhat like oregano, but the leaves are more heart-shaped. Fairly common wild on campus. Taste: somewhere midway the triangle formed by mint, oregano, and black pepper; quite nice to refresh the mouth after lunch, would probably also go well with white fish. I might want to use it for a green lentil soup, but am not entirely sure how I would keep it from losing its flavor.
arbousier (arbutus unedo) - Planted as a decorative tree in a number of places on campus, have also seen it as a hedge elsewhere. Like blueberries, it is related to heather, a fact you can absolutely see in its tresses of white flowers once you know it. Fruits are red, round, mildly spiky and impossible to miss. Before they are entirely ripe, the fruits are quite pleasant, mildly acidulous; when entirely ripe their taste and texture are really remarkably similar to custard.
myrte - Related to blueberry (myrtille in French); not related to myrrh. Waist-high shrubs planted for decoration on campus; spiky lancet-shaped leaves. Taste: not sweet at all, like if a bay leaf was a berry - not that the book didn’t warn me, but still, whut?
micocoulier - Not actually in the book, just so common all over the city that I looked it up out of spite. Tall trees with smooth, light grey bark and vaguely birch-like leaves. Fruits are small, round, in clusters; they start out green, stay that way for a long time, and then in a short period turn through yellow to a purplish black. Fruits are small, round, and mostly stone; the flesh is mealy; and the taste is strongly sweet, close to honey.
mauve sylvestre - Plant with wide, quasi-circular leaves and purple flowers, common wild on campus and also elsewhere. I have collected and dried the flowers to make tea with; have not yet tried the tea. The mucilage in them is supposed to make them good for throat-aches.
fausse roquette (false arugula) - Looks like arugula, four-petaled white flowers. Very common. The taste of the leaves is nutty like arugula, but with more of an undertone of mustard. Especially the veins can get very spicy. Crunchy. Might also be good as pesto?
[Gathering wild edible plants and fruit in the Mediterranean]
Plants I have identified and tried based on this book:
calament nepeta - Herb, looks somewhat like oregano, but the leaves are more heart-shaped. Fairly common wild on campus. Taste: somewhere midway the triangle formed by mint, oregano, and black pepper; quite nice to refresh the mouth after lunch, would probably also go well with white fish. I might want to use it for a green lentil soup, but am not entirely sure how I would keep it from losing its flavor.
arbousier (arbutus unedo) - Planted as a decorative tree in a number of places on campus, have also seen it as a hedge elsewhere. Like blueberries, it is related to heather, a fact you can absolutely see in its tresses of white flowers once you know it. Fruits are red, round, mildly spiky and impossible to miss. Before they are entirely ripe, the fruits are quite pleasant, mildly acidulous; when entirely ripe their taste and texture are really remarkably similar to custard.
myrte - Related to blueberry (myrtille in French); not related to myrrh. Waist-high shrubs planted for decoration on campus; spiky lancet-shaped leaves. Taste: not sweet at all, like if a bay leaf was a berry - not that the book didn’t warn me, but still, whut?
micocoulier - Not actually in the book, just so common all over the city that I looked it up out of spite. Tall trees with smooth, light grey bark and vaguely birch-like leaves. Fruits are small, round, in clusters; they start out green, stay that way for a long time, and then in a short period turn through yellow to a purplish black. Fruits are small, round, and mostly stone; the flesh is mealy; and the taste is strongly sweet, close to honey.
mauve sylvestre - Plant with wide, quasi-circular leaves and purple flowers, common wild on campus and also elsewhere. I have collected and dried the flowers to make tea with; have not yet tried the tea. The mucilage in them is supposed to make them good for throat-aches.
fausse roquette (false arugula) - Looks like arugula, four-petaled white flowers. Very common. The taste of the leaves is nutty like arugula, but with more of an undertone of mustard. Especially the veins can get very spicy. Crunchy. Might also be good as pesto?
no subject
Date: 2025-05-01 09:05 pm (UTC)I love this review particularly. (I have had myrtle berries, but I believe only as a component of sausages.)
no subject
Date: 2025-05-02 08:44 am (UTC)I can see them working well in a sausage. Apparently they also get a bit sweeter when a frost has passed over them, but here that doesn't happen all that often.