Recipe story: tagine-style peas, carrots, apricot and chives
During the holidays spent at her grandparents’ house, Karine felt like a little girl in Alice’s garden. The flowerbeds were steeped in the poetry of a kindly genie who took the form of her grandfather. Everywhere, the magic of spring transformed this beautiful house rooted in the heart of nature. The child wandered, sometimes among creeping borders, sometimes among long stems crowned with pretty flowers whose colours awakened her senses.
That morning, she found her grandfather already busy in the vegetable garden. One eyebrow raised like a question mark, he confided what was troubling him: the hedgehog that lived in the garden had disappeared!
Karine set off in search of the little mammal. As she passed, everything seemed to come to life: root vegetables, round vegetables, heritage vegetables, celery, chard, asparagus…
She inspected the rows of lettuces and the bunches of leeks… Thinking of how disappointed her grandmother might be if the hedgehog were declared missing, she decided to offer her, by way of consolation, a handful of young green pods filled with peas, and quickly picked them.
The orchard adjoined the garden and extended the vegetable patch. Guessing that the animal might have taken refuge under the fallen leaves of the trees, Karine looked over the plum, peach and cherry trees, going behind the pear and walnut trees, between the apple and quince trees, the medlars and hazels, the almond trees and the fig trees. But the hedgehog was nowhere to be found. At a loose end, she reached out to pick an apricot from a branch in blossom.
Then it came to her in a flash: she had forgotten to check the herbs! So she headed back towards the bed. And there… she discovered… the hedgehog, nonchalantly asleep in the middle of the patch!
At that very moment, her grandmother was calling everyone to breakfast. Karine thought of the warm slices of toast waiting for her… Stepping into the kitchen, she laid her trophy of the day on the table: the apricot and the peas. Her grandfather arrived in turn, with some herbs. He closed “the hedgehog affair” by announcing: Granny is going to cook a lovely pea stew with herbs from the garden.
Years later, Karine wanted to give this story the ending it deserved, in other words to add apricots to the recipe, sensing that the sweetness of peas would pair wonderfully with that of apricot. Today, the stew, inspired by memories of her childhood, embodies life within a nature as generous as a grandparent’s heart can be…
