Discover the Cornwall Male, a delight tree
Some plants seem so familiar to me today, when they seemed to me, some forty years ago, to be myth. So it is with a male stallow (Cornus mas) whose right name I thought out of a medieval novel. Cornwall… what link with horns? Its name is due to the robustness of its wood, hard as of the horn. But why “male”, when he gives fruit? It would be as opposed to an supposed female dogwood of which the old one speaks in his Natural history, But who could never be really identified. Weird, therefore.
My first meeting with the fruits of this shrub took place during a week of “sweet survival” in 1981: a hike surrounded by nature where we only feed on our picking. It was in Haute-Provence. When on the edge of an oakswood, we discovered a red carpet of very ripe -ripped dogwood, the few apprehensions of the group turned into bliss. Imagine large, soft and sweet pulp olives, a flavor of redcurrant, cherry and raspberry. A delight.
The raw corwories are delicious provided they are perfectly ripe. The best is to put a sheet on the ground, to shake the tree, and to harvest the fruits. I revel in each end of summer. The shrub as a product as long as it is logical to make jams, to “do not let them lose”. An oh so anthropocentric view, because they are never: mammals, birds and insects make it good, believe me!
Cornwall liquor recipe
1 kg of crumples, 3 l of fruit brandy,, 200 g of sugar.
1. Put the Cornwall in a large sandstone pot or in a lady-Jeanne.
2. Fill with brandy, add the sugar and let macerate.
3. After a month, go to the vegetable mill to reduce the pug pornwood and remove the nuclei, and collect the thick juice.
4. Keep this magnificent red liquor in pretty bottles and taste occasionally at the end of the meal.
Fruits of all continents
Before being ripe, the Cornwall is hard and acidic. However, it is at this stage, just orange, that we choose them to keep them in brine, like the olives. In eastern Poland, I was able to visit a large orchard of Cornwalls where varieties with large fruits like plums pushed. One of the main productions was the lactofermented Cornwall, which was served with various dishes like pickles. Very good, and easy to do: Cornwall, water, salt … and three weeks of patience.
I had the opportunity to taste the fruits of other stars. In northern Europe, North America and northern Asia, these were small herbaceous plants with rather insipid fruit (CORNUS SUECCICA, CORNUS CANADENSIS). I clearly preferred those of Cornus Kousa that I discovered in Japan. They resemble there, kinds of large pink strawberries with orange and tasty pulp, very different from our Cornwall for which I admit to having a real penchant …
