“These were the gestures, natural and simple. We made a meal of grass and night. On the edge of the clearing was set down a large plate full of this salad of the hills, very pale, picked in the shade, wriggling about, gleaming with oil, like a nest of green spiders. We dug in with our fingers, each in turn. We were all in a circle, with the plate in the middle. A large slab of bread in the left hand served as plate and napkin, and when that bread had soaked up enough oil, had wiped the fingers well' enough, we ate it, and it tasted like a harvest afternoon.
The night we munched with the salad. The night overflowed from the crater in slow gushes, and our mouths were full of night when we bit into the bread crusts rubbed with garlic. It all provided food for the belly and the brain. I don't know if the brain really had its separate share. I think rather that everything, salad, oil, dark bread, night, and the gentian glances, they all went into the belly, there they all made weight and warmth, there they were all changed into saps and smells, so much so that finally, we were drunk from the triple power of the sky, the earth, and truth.”
- Jean Giono, The Serpent of Stars
***
In the evening, with a big wooden bowl under my arms, I go out to collect the wild salad. Along the laneway, deep green violet leaves have grown plump in the rain. I layer the bottom of the bowl with the heart-shaped leaves. There are a few small plantain plants dotted amongst the violets and I pick a handful of lanced leaves. It is best to find them when they are young and before they have gone to flower, as they get very fibrous and tough to chew on. Then, over to the towering linden trees where the lime-green foliage has just unfurled in full. These trees are generous; so many branches at perfect picking height. It delights me that these leaves are also heart-shaped. The emergent heart-theme of the salad reminds me of the hawthorn trees, which I visit next. Because these trees are still young, I only take a small sampling, but at this point the bowl almost has enough green. In the orchard I pluck a few dandelion leaves to add a bit of bitter. Dent-de-lion: Tooth of the lion. Dandelion has a sharp bitter bite, always welcome in a salad, a taste that reminds us of our vitality. I head over to the sprawling patch of ground ivy, and throw the tiny purple flowers over the greens, little stars. A universe in the bowl.
With the wild nourishment of Spring,
xx Liz
