Heart-Shaped Potatoes of the Gleaners, Roasted
Rustic potatoes, picked up or salvaged, roasted in the oven with garlic in its skin, thyme, and olive oil. The simplest and most tender dish: what was saved becomes a feast.
Rustic potatoes, picked up or salvaged, roasted in the oven with garlic in its skin, thyme, and olive oil. The simplest and most tender dish: what was saved becomes a feast.
I filmed heart-shaped potatoes, can you believe it? Thrown away because they weren't the right size, not round enough for the machines — so I picked them up and brought them back to Rue Daguerre. Gleaning isn't poor, it's just looking differently at what others drop. You roast them with a head of garlic and a sprig of thyme, you peel nothing, and you feast on what the world wanted to lose.
- •Gleaned potatoes — what was picked up (base)
- •Garlic in its skin — a head (aromatic)
- •Thyme and rosemary — a few sprigs (flavor)
- •Olive oil — generous (roasting)
- •Coarse salt — a pinch (seasoning)
Heart-Shaped Potatoes of the Gleaners, Roasted
Rustic potatoes, picked up or salvaged, roasted in the oven with garlic in its skin, thyme, and olive oil. The simplest and most tender dish: what was saved becomes a feast.
Why this dish? Direct homage to her film 'The Gleaners and I' (2000), where Agnès Varda films heart-shaped potatoes rejected by industrial sorting, which she picks up and keeps at home. A dish that celebrates her fascination with food gleaning and the refusal of waste.
I filmed heart-shaped potatoes, can you believe it? Thrown away because they weren't the right size, not round enough for the machines — so I picked them up and brought them back to Rue Daguerre. Gleaning isn't poor, it's just looking differently at what others drop. You roast them with a head of garlic and a sprig of thyme, you peel nothing, and you feast on what the world wanted to lose.
Ingredients (period version)
- Gleaned potatoes — what was picked up (base)
- Garlic in its skin — a head (aromatic)
- Thyme and rosemary — a few sprigs (flavor)
- Olive oil — generous (roasting)
- Coarse salt — a pinch (seasoning)
Ingredients
- Firm-fleshed potatoes (rejects if possible) — 1 kg (base)
- Garlic — 1 head, cloves unpeeled (aromatic)
- Thyme — 4 sprigs (flavor)
- Rosemary — 2 sprigs (flavor)
- Olive oil — 5 tbsp (roasting)
- Coarse salt and pepper — to taste (seasoning)
Method
- Wash the potatoes without peeling; cut the larger ones in half to keep heart shapes if possible.
- Arrange them in a dish with the unpeeled garlic cloves and herbs.
- Drizzle generously with olive oil, sprinkle with coarse salt, mix with your hands.
- Roast at 200°C for 45 min, stirring halfway, until golden and tender.
- Squeeze a confit garlic clove onto each bite and serve hot, to share from the dish.
How it was made : Gleaning is an ancient right, codified in France as early as 1554 by an edict allowing the poor to collect leftover crops after the harvest. Long a gesture of rural survival, it persisted in Mediterranean countryside and inspired Varda's meditation on what society throws away.
The contemporary twist : Keep a whole heart-shaped potato in the center of the dish, barely split, like the 'star' of the film — a tender, activist presentation.
Sources : Agnès Varda, Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (2000) · Édit royal sur le glanage, France, 1554
Agnès Varda · Charactorium