Chard, côtes, cardes, and all that

In comments on one of my recent posts about Swiss chard, my old friend and French-language mentor put doubts in my head about the French name for what is considered the choicest part of the chard plant: the leaf stalk or rib. It's most often called la côte, which means "rib" in culinary language, but it's also called la carde by some authors. I've been reading a lot about chard these last few days, especially in the French language Larousse Gastronomique cooking encyclopedia— the weather has been chilly and rainy, so this occupies my time.

You can enlarge the text of the article below and I think it'll be readable.

Here are a few quotes from the 1967 edition of the Larousse Gastronomique, which has to be considered a standard reference in French, in its article entitled BETTE, BLETTE ou POIRÉE À CARDE. I haven't taken the time to translate all this because I'm not sure what level of interest there is in this kind of discussion. I'm a language nerd and it's pretty arcane. There's an expression in English that seems perfectly appropriate to describe what this is all about: I'm talking about describing somebody as being "in the weeds" — meaning "immersed or entangled in details or complexities." The French expressions ...cheveux en quatre, ...petite bête, and ...enc*lage de mouches come to mind. However, I'm willing to translate if asked...

« Connue encore sous les noms de carde, joutte, etc., [c'est] une plante potagère du même genre que la betterave, dans laquelle la culture a développé les feuilles, le pétiole et la grosse côte... »

It goes on to specify that « les variétés les plus employées en cuisine sont : la poirée à cardes blondes, la poirée à cardes vertes de Lyon, la poirée à cardes rouges, et la poirée à cardes jaunes du Chili... »

« Les blettes se préparent à la fois comme les cardons et comme les épinards. Les côtes ou cardes, généralement larges et tendres, fournissent un légume délicat, et les parties vertes de ses feuilles en produisent un autre non moins apprécié. »

The next paragraph in the article describes the « préparation des cardes », beginning with: « Parer les côtes... les éplucher et supprimer toutes les filandres... » (Chard stalks, like celery stalks, can be stringy.) I assume the LG author is using the term « cardes » to mean stalks, since in the preceding paragraph I read the expression « les côtes ou cardes », implying that these terms are synonyms.

As as aside, let me say that it's interesting how the LG article uses the term « poirée » to describe the most widely used varieties of chard; the term « blettes » in describing how to prepare and cook the stalks and, separately, the green leaves; and then the term « bettes » in the fourteen recipes it gives for cooking chard. All the recipes in the article are for cooking the chard leaf stalks; as for the green parts of the leaves, the LG just sends readers to its article about spinach and recommends following spinach recipes in cooking chard greens.

To conclude, the book in PDF format now called the Grand Larousse Gastronomique, a 2007 revision of earlier print editions of the LG, includes the following article:

CARDE Côte comestible de la poirée, communément appelée bette. Les cardes constituent un légume apprécié en Provence et dans la vallée du Rhône. Cuites à l'eau ou dans un blanc, elles s'apprêtent au jus, avec une sauce tomate ou une sauce blanche bien condimentée, pour relever leur goût un peu neutre.

One more thing: both the Petit Larousse dictionary (I have the 1980 edition) and the Petit Robert dictionary (mine is the 1989 ed.) give this definition (among others) for CARDE: Côte comestible des feuilles de cardon et de bette, and the PR says that meaning dates back to the 16th century. That's slightly ambiguous, because you can't tell if the word carde was used that early for both plants or just one (le cardon, perhaps). I wonder how old names like poirée à cardes blanches or bette à cardes are...

The photos above show the chard leaves. I cut off the leaf stalk (called la côte, la carde, or la tige) right at the bottom of the green leaf, leaving the main rib with the green part. Then I slice the leaf stalk across its width and cook those pieces in a steamer pot. This time, I put the green leaves in a pot with some white wine, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I seasoned this batch with some crushed red pepper flakes.