What is a potager?
Created on 1/25/2009
Potager? I don’t speak French and I am not a linguist, but let me first direct you on how to pronounce this tricky word. Here’s a hint…. It does not rhyme with cottage-er. Think more French…puh ta zhay. Would you like to hear it? Turn up your computer speakers and try this site. http://french.about.com/cs/vocabulary/g/potager.htm
The French phrase, jardin potager, translates as a garden of vegetables; yes, it’s a kitchen garden but the word carries with it a much deeper meaning. Potager literally means “for the soup pot” so the word itself implies that what is growing in the garden is being served at the table. The potager is more than a thing- it’s a philosophy of living connected to the seasons and reliance on the garden. It speaks of a simple way of life that is dependent on the garden to supply the fresh soup of the day. The garden dictates the menu.
The soup of the day changes, of course, with the months of the year. In April the garden yields peas, radishes, baby kale, and lettuces. At the peak of summer with longer days and warmer soil, the garden provides pungent peppers, luscious tomatoes, eggplant, okra and flavorful basil. The daily summer menu calls for anything from stir fried vegetables to rich moussaka overflowing with tomatoes, onions, garlic, herbs and eggplant. In the fall the flavors and colors deepen with plentiful squashes and sweet potatoes. Have you ever baked a whole pumpkin in the oven or made squash soup? The shorter and cooler days of late fall have us searching for recipes to use strange looking root vegetables. What do you do with rutabaga and parsnips?
The French potager is a designed garden with flowers, vegetables, fruits and herbs growing together in a pleasing way. The traditional four-square form comes from the monastic cloister garden- two paths crossing with a water feature in the center. Le potager-du roi, the kitchen garden of Louis 14 at Versailles and other Renaissance kitchen gardens maintained this symmetrical layout. The garden itself was designed to be a work of art with vegetables and flowers adding color, variety and fragrance.
Our American kitchen gardens don’t need to precisely adopt the layout of the traditional potager, but there are lessons to be gleaned from the jardin potager- make the garden beautiful and let it determine what’s for dinner.
