Post the fourth!

[oloriel]

Spring is now in full swing and one of the delights of spring (in Europe anyway) is bear's garlic.
And what do good Europeans do when, in their home country, collecting bear's garlic in the wild is not-strictly-forbidden-but-not-exactly-allowed? Exactly - they go for an hour's drive until they've reached a country where they can hunt bear's garlic to their heart's delight!
In my case, an hour's drive gets me no further than Belgium, but that's perfectly fine. So I packed two friends into my car and off we went to the Eyneburg, a castle where supposedly one of Charlemagne's many daughters met her secret lover, not that this is in any way relevant to our visit there. Normally we (or rather, Enlothien and Ute, i.e. my companions-in-bear's garlic - I often don't make it) go there for the traditional Easter market, which just happens to be around bear's garlic season anyway. This year, however, Easter is so late that we weren't certain the bear's garlic wouldn't be in flower by then (i.e., bitter and no longer tasty), particularly as the past weeks were so sunny. So we went now rather than later, and in the middle of the week too. It felt sort of weird to walk around the Eyneburg and not wear medieval garb...

An additional advantage (Enlo and Ute thought) of going in the middle of the week, with the castle closed for visitors, would be that we could drive right up to the castle road instead of parking in Kelmis (i.e., ten minutes on foot from the castle road). However, the road leading to the castle road was blocked for everyone except residents and buses. I overruled the two "Aw, we're practically residents", pointed out that my car's licence plate is not only not "local", but not even from the same country, further pointed out that a ten-minute walk was surely manageable, and parked in Kelmis after all. I've got the car keys, I've got the power!
So we walked into the woods, which are absolutely magical at this time of year. The entire ground is covered in wood anemones, sorrel, periwinkle and buttercups on one side of the river Geul - and bear's garlic on the other. Once you enter the forest, you can smell garlic everywhere. And the sun was shining, and the Geul was glittering, and the silhouette of the castle was looming upon the mountain, and I shall get carried away in descriptive prose if I don't stop now. We first marched up the mountain, practically stumbled across an ill-hidden geocache, snuck into the empty castle, and then went back to the woods to gather bear's garlic. I came back home with a whole kilogramm of the lovely stuff and the wood is still brimming with it.

We were right to go now, btw: We already discovered a lot of flowerbuds. Another week and there will be flowers. Besides, it seems that there will be no Easter market at the Eyneburg this year - there is no announcement yet, at any rate, and with only two weeks to go one should think there would be one. So there.

My mother-in-law offered the use of her food processor so I visited her in order to turn the (alas) perishable leaves into something more lasting (you can't deep-freeze bear's garlic without it loosing its taste). We produced three different varieties of pesto, mustard and a feta/cream cheese blend, all of which are tasty (well, I don't know about the mustard yet, as it has to ripen for a while). I also filled two bottles with oil and bear's garlic leaves to keep them for later. Then I still had bear's garlic left to cut some into a salad, and to make bear's garlic quiche for lunch on Saturday. OM NOM NOM.

Comments

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

Why is ramson-gathering verboten in Germany?

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

It isn't. As I said, it's not-strictly-forbidden-but-not-exactly-allowed. It's only verboten in nature reserves - everywhere else it's permitted within limits (as in, you may only take one or two leaves depending on the strength of the plant, and you may not pull the bulbs out). The trouble is that "within limits" may be a matter of argument, and you always have would-be deputies who think their understanding is the one true interpretation. So on the whole it's easier to go to Belgium. ^^

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

The point being that it's being overharvested?

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

I think in most places it's rather that it might be overharvested if you didn't tell people to be at least vaguely mindful. But yeah, that's basically the point.