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Every late summer, volunteers from the association La Cueillette solidaire collect unconsumed fruit and vegetables from gardens in the Alpes-Maritimes and part of the Var. An initiative that promotes reintegration and promotes local varieties.
The grapes are slowly finishing turning red. On this last day of August, the most acidic ones are still clinging to their bunch, the ripest are crushed on the terrace. “When it’s not the turtledoves that are grazing,” says Audrey, the owner of this century-old vine that shades her house in Nice. Audrey is overwhelmed by her 20 square meters of trellis. She can turn it into juice and jellies, give it to neighbors and colleagues, but there are still grains galore. So for ten years, Audrey has been involving the association La Cueillette solidaire. Every late summer, volunteers harvest in her garden. The fruit of the harvest is processed and sold via the social structure Renouer, which employs people in rehabilitation. Waste is avoided, local varieties are revalued.
It was when she saw fruit crashing to the ground, on the roadsides and behind the hedges of properties that Sophie Allain launched Cueillette in 2012. In the Alpes-Maritimes and part of the Var, 40 harvests are organized per year, or 5 tons of fruit saved. Often, these are slightly ungrateful varieties, like this jacquet. Its grain is small, black, rustic, less greedy and less fleshy than table grapes. “We do whatever comes our way, Sophie Allain explains. The most common fruit is the bitter orange. [l’orange amère]. It’s the black beast. Nobody wants it. It was planted for its orange blossom.” Last year, s
