A plant update, but more importantly, while we're here, my in-laws are...

...trying to get the skunk smell off of our dog. Yes, I think we got the better end of THAT deal.

I woke up this morning to this email from my father-in-law, sent in reply to yesterday's blog about the mysterious plant.

Did it have a skunky smell? 4:00 am in the morning and Judy, forgetting possible skunks in the early morning darkness, complies and lets you know who outside. Many many many hours later and after spraying her with Skunk-Off and giving her a bubble bath outside with dog and cat shampoo she has been once again allowed into the house......She acted like she has never had a bath?? She shivered and tried to escape but I kept her in our outside bathing container and although she envisioned biting me with glee, she chose to take another path and let it happen. All three of us had minor and major roles in this adventure and we all thought about you guys (well, at least I did)....

Poor Jay. Poor Judy. And (I suppose), poor Kaia, the smelly dog, who hates baths and has only had two in her more than 12 year long life (she's rather cat like in that way).

I am just wondering how much Aligoté we'll have to bring back to make this up to them? Just what is the appropriate gift for someone who has taken care of your skunk-sprayed dog? I wonder if Miss Manners has ever contemplated such a question.

In other, less horribly smelly, news, I have a possible lead on the plant mystery, thanks to Liz, a friend of mine here in Burgundy. She emailed this morning with with a few thoughts. She said she will check with her favorite neighbor, an 82-year-old who heads south each winter but who is coming home this week and knows all about local plants, but in the meantime her best guesses are either wild asparagus (aka Ornithogalum pyrenaicum, aka Prussian asparagus, Bath Asparagus (it was once abundant near that city), Pyrenees star of Bethlehem, spiked star of Bethlehem or in French asperge des bois, aspergette, ornithogale des Pyrénées) or wild garlic (aka ail des ours, aka ramsons). Though concerning the latter, she wrote she has "yet to meet a Burgundian who shares my fondness for this and to plunge it in boiling water would be an outrage."

She included this link which included this interesting tidbit (for those of us who are always on the lookout for wild boar):
  
Ramsons (Allium ursinum) (also known as buckrams, wild garlic, broad-leaved garlic, wood garlic, sremuš or bear's garlic) is a wild relative of chives. The Latin name owes to the brown bear's taste for the bulbs and habit of digging up the ground to get at them; they are also a favorite of wild boar.

The photo on the left of ramsons has leaves that looked very much like the leaves the man pulled out of his pocket. And I certainly understand getting excited about garlic! But... why would he be boiling them? Garlic tea? Soup?

Liz did warn "if you do go looking for wild garlic remember to check for the distinctive flowers, as the leaves are very similar to lily of the valley which is poisonous." As for the boiling... I could almost see her shrug her shoulders as she wrote that "the French don't always deserve their reputation for knowing exactly what to do in the kitchen." And she thinks I would have been about to smell it (she said when you walk through a wood where they grow in profusion it can be quite overpowering).

Ah, the mystery continues.

And just for the record... to Jay and Judy, I am really sorry about that skunk. We'll make it up to you somehow.