La Fête de la Dinde à Licques

We are five days away from the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. As a result the sun doesn’t come up until 9h00 and is down by 17h00, so getting up on Sunday for the Fête de la Dinde in Licques was somewhat of a challenge. But it was worth it.

Every year the town of Licques holds a festival in honour of the turkey. A hundred or so turkeys are paraded along the main street of the village followed by the town dignitaries. I had the camera set on a high ISO in anticipation of a fast and active turkey dash but it ended up being a very slow and stagnant move through the crowd. The turkeys did little more than amble, quite comfortable with all of the attention and un-miffed by the hundreds of people that had come to watch.

The town is famous for its traditionally reared organic turkey and has been celebrating this event since the 17th century. I was moved to find that they have celebrated this event for such a long time. The town continues to show enduring adoration and appreciation for an animal that has provided, I imagine, many local jobs and much financial security for the town.

As part of the festivities there was also a brilliant food producers market. There were wines, cheeses, a variety of milks and icecreams, honey, fresh, cured and conserved meats and of course … fresh turkey.

In the main square there is a stone statue of a turkey showing just how important this bird is to the towns people. Behind it, just for this special day was a gigantic cauldron brewing the town’s famed liqueur ‘Licquoise’. Unfortunately I was completely engaged with ‘chasing’ the ambling turkeys that I missed the drinking of the contents of the cauldron … fortunately there’s always next year!

street flowers in Aire-sur-la-Lys.

The village of Aire-sur-la-Lys is where we do our grocery shopping, use the post office, get a kebab, those sorts of things. Like most French villages around France the local commune does a wonderful job of placing flowers around the place and effortlessly maintaining them through the growing season. Usually the pots that are permanently placed along the streets are rectangular or square but in Aire sur la Lys, they have installed very high pots of flowers above the footpath. They last significantly longer than the street level planters because they don’t get attacked by playful children and they get a great deal more light up high. Some of these pots have been mounted, hanging from the facade of buildings and they look really wonderful, beautiful balls of flowers that bring loads of colour to the street.

nasturtium salad.

I love eating flowers. Some months ago that would have seemed quite strange to me but nonetheless, I have become a flower eater. I made this salad to accompany fish a few afternoons ago and thought that I would share it. It has a few handfuls of mache; a few handfuls of rocket; purple basil, as much as you can spare and about the same quantity of nasturtium flowers to basil leaves. Wash and drip dry all of the ingredients, throw them together and drizzle with olive oil. I find when picking the nasturtium flowers that it is best to leave about 10 – 15 cm of the stem left on the flower so that you can put them in a vase of water until you are ready to add them to the salad. I also pinch the stem off as close to the flower as possible when I’m ready to use them. You can eat the entire flower, and they are quite delicious. They have a subtle flavour with a slight velvety texture when they reach your tongue. It’s quick, glorious and real show stopper when it lands on the table.

‘Sunspot’ sunflowers.

My sunflowers have finally tipped their heads which signals the end of Summer and the slow decent in to Winter. Seeing that they looked so solemn today in the wind and the rain, I thought I’d post these pics to hold on to their glory for just a tinsy bit longer. Have a great weekend everybody!