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Poirée and/or blette


Iceni

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[quote user="Iceni"]Help please - are these one and the same ? If so when/why should I use one word or the other ? If not what is the difference ?[/quote]

They are one and the same as Cat says, but Poireée seems to be the favoured term used in the supermarket, for example, when buying one or two leaves for a gazillion Euros, and Blette's used when buying plants for thruppence to grow on yourself.

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I wondered whether "blettes" might be used for the much larger Swiss chard, with the big stems, and poirée for the smaller, more delicate ones.

Seems to be the only thing that grows virtually by itself in my garden: I got the French Thompon and Morgan poirée seeds, where you get a mix of red stems, yellow stems, and ordinary white stems.

edit: It does look like both names are used indifferently, but there is "poirée verte a couper", there is "poirée a carde rouge" (ruby chard).

http://www.saveursdumonde.net/produits/legumes/bette-ou-blette/

 edit 2: Sorry Cat, I overlooked your reply! Got rather carried away...

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[quote user="5-element"]

Soon you just won't know what to do with it, there will be no more buying blettes in the market for you anymore!

It is a very rewarding vegetable to grow, and it lasts through the winter too!

[/quote]

Though germination % was not brilliant the remaining plants are really making up for their absent friends. There are only the remnants of 2 x 8 ft rows but at current yields we will run out of space in the freezer.

One of the internet sites claims that chard will withstand a mild frost but we don't get those - ours are a bit sharper than that usually hitting -10 or even lower at some point. Though as an experiment I intend to cover it during the winter to see what happens in the "spring" - that's the slightly warmer wet season that follows the cold wet season.

John

 

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