I can remember back to those very first trips to France for the summer holidays. This was all of 40 years ago, landing in Roscoff on the Brittany coast. My yellow Renault 4 speeding along the road without a care in the world. These were different days, there was no air-conditioning, no sat nav, Google maps or booking.com.

How we ever found our way anywhere or indeed found a place to stay still completely baffles me today. Roaming down French boreens you might be lucky enough to spot a sign for a ‘Chambre d’Hôte’, the French bed and breakfast. You might end up in a converted Breton barn surrounded by a large gaggle of cackling geese with a cider press in the corner.

In the small villages and towns, you might strike gold and secure a room in timeless French style in a Maison de Maître – enjoying the luxury of a roll-top bath and a four-poster bed.

Wherever the haphazard French bed and breakfast roulette wheel landed you, a stay was always punctuated by one stellar constant – the classic French breakfast. In addition to the enigmatic large bowl of black coffee, the best of fresh crusty baguette, irresistible flaky croissants served with unsalted butter, came the coup de grâce in the form of the homemade confiture, the jam.

Homemade preserves

I think it must be deep within the French national character, close to the point of obsession, to engage in the vernacular craft of jam-making.

At breakfast they display palpable pride in personally presenting their variety of homemade preserves. The host will stand by the table and make a special little speech, gesturing with their hand to the array of jams.

Each is heralded with a nod to the exotic nature or domestic provenance of the fruit. The breakfast table might well have three or four different jams on show. Anything from Reine Claude plums, figs from the garden, apricots from Roussillon, peaches and nectarines from Provence, black cherries, mandarin oranges, fraise de bois ‘wild strawberries’, framboise

‘raspberries’ and cassis ‘blackcurrant’. The one name I could never quite catch was groseille à maquereau ‘mackerel berry’ – and it happens to be my absolute favourite. It’s better known to you and me as gooseberry.

We used to call gooseberries, ‘goosegogs’ and on our childhood apple ‘slogging’ escapades into neighbours’ back gardens, we might occasionally sample the slightly hairy, striped tart berries, making sure not to get pricked by their sharp thorns. They were always hard and bitter except at the end of a sun-filled, balmy summer, when they turned purple as they ripened and were sweet and fit to burst.

Many of the traditional Lughnasa fairs and festivals around the country were known specifically as ‘gooseberry fairs’ with baskets of gooseberries for sale, characterising the occasion

In folklore, the thorns of the gooseberry bush were indispensable in curing a stye in the eye. Ten thorns were picked, one thrown away over the left shoulder and then, over nine subsequent mornings, each thorn was pointed directly at the stye, its point sometimes piercing any pus.

While pointing the thorn at the stye, a short prayer of ‘In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost’ was said and, after nine days, the stye would be cured. The end of July and the start of August has always firmly been gooseberry season in Ireland.

Lughnasa fairs

Many of the traditional Lughnasa fairs and festivals around the country were known specifically as ‘gooseberry fairs’ with baskets of gooseberries for sale, characterising the occasion. They would have been sold along with the wild fraochán ‘bilberries’ for both tarts and jams and invariably, I can only assume, my favourite homemade gooseberry jam was enjoyed by many in years gone by.

This brings me back to the French name for the gooseberry: ‘the berry of the mackerel’. It is well named because of its mackerel-like stripes but also because both fish and fruit are in perfect seasonal harmony at this time of the year. The shoals of black and purple-striped silvery mackerel make their way along the coast in the summer months and, when in excess, there is nothing as welcome as the gift of a parcel of freshly caught mackerel from a thoughtful fishing neighbour.

Unwrapped from their newspaper bundle, gutted, floured and put sizzling in foaming butter on a hot pan, a seasonal delight awaits. If such an opportunity arises, I anticipate entertaining the French gourmandise culinary combination of fresh mackerel accompanied by sumptuous dollops of homemade gooseberry jam.

Shane Lehane is a folklorist who works in UCC and Cork College of FET, Tramore Road Campus. Contact: slehane@ucc.ie