If kale has taken over much of the western world, even popping up in the past few months at the Nice markets, it’s hard to imagine the locals ever giving up their Swiss chard, known in French as blettes. 

It will be two more months before I can bite into a juicy French gariguette or ciflorette berry that signals the real beginning of red fruit season. In the meantime, thankfully, there is citrus fruit: vivid lemons, the last of the local clementines, bergamot, bitter oranges for marmalade, and - just occasionally - the deeper orangey-yellow Meyer lemon.