How to prepare: To retain the color and get the best flavor and texture from all types of filet and standard snap beans, the French blanch them (used in the cooking sense of the word, i.e., boiling them briefly in a large pot full of salted water). Cook the beans until they're almost tender and then drain them. Reheat them in butter just before serving them as a separate course or as a side dish and garnish them with lemon juice, parsley, or heavy cream. Cooked beans are also sometimes served in salads and terrines (molded main dishes). In southern France green beans are popular served with a sauce of tomatoes, garlic, and herbs. Flageolets are a special treat well worth the work and are eaten with butter and salt and pepper. Or they can be used in salads or soups, particularly the classic vegetable soup known as soupe au pistou. When mature, the shelling beans can be dried and used in soups and stews and baked in the traditional cassoulet.
Filet Bean 'Nickel'
CABBAGE
Brassica oleracea, Capitata Group
Cabbages are most associated with northern France. Both the puck-ery Savoy types with their handsome crinkled leaves and the red and purple ball-like smooth cabbages.
How to grow: Cabbages are best grown as cool-season annuals and bolt in extremely hot weather. In cold climates cabbage is started in early spring or early summer, depending on variety. In mild areas, it is started in late winter or midsummer. Cabbages need full sun, or light shade in hot climates. Buy transplants at a local nursery, or start seeds indoors 8 weeks before your last average frost date. Transplant out into the garden in rich soil filled with organic matter about 2 weeks before the last average frost date. Seeds or plants can also be planted in midsummer for a fall crop. Space small varieties 12" apart and larger ones 24". As cabbages tend to be top-heavy, when transplanting, place them lower in the soil than you would most transplants—up to their first leaves after the seed leaves. Cabbages are heavy feeders, so add a balanced organic fertilizer, 1 cup worked into the soil around each plant at planting time. Cabbages need regular, even watering and a substantial mulch.
Cabbages have many pests. As soon as the plants are in the garden, prevent the cabbage white butterfly from laying eggs by covering the plants with floating row covers. See Appendix B for more information. For cabbage root fly, use the floating row cover to prevent the fly from laying her eggs or prevent the maggot from entering the soil by placing a 12" square black plastic directly over the roots of the plant. To do this, cut a slit about 6" long from one edge directly to the middle of the square and slip it around the plant. To prevent cut worms place a collar of cardboard around each seedling. Clubroot is a serious fungus disease of the cabbage family, as are black rot and yellows. Good garden hygiene is your best preventive here. Rotating members of the cabbage family with other vegetable families prevents many problems.
Harvest cabbages anytime after they have started to head up, well and before they become so large they split. Mature cabbages can take temperatures as low as 20°F. The savoy types are the most hardy. If a hard freeze is expected, harvest all the cabbages and store them in a cool place.
Varieties
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