Goûts du Large : Pêche, marée et cuisine des rivages atlantiques | Trésors du Patrimoine

🦪 Le Bassin d’Arcachon comme vous ne l’avez jamais goûté, avec le chef étoilé Guy Martin ! 🌊🌿

Amoureux de la France et du patrimoine, ses trésors n’auront plus de secrets pour vous 👉 https://bit.ly/4dnI1h1

Entre l’océan Atlantique et la grande forêt des Landes, ce documentaire vous plonge dans un écosystème unique, où dunes, pinèdes et marées dessinent un territoire façonné par la mer.

🌿 À Gujan-Mestras, Fabrice élève ses huîtres avec passion, perpétuant le savoir-faire ostréicole transmis par ses grands-parents.
🐟 À bord de son bateau, Christophe pêche le bar toute l’année dans les eaux du bassin, avec une méthode artisanale respectueuse de l’environnement.
🧂 Entre nurseries naturelles, parcs ostréicoles et dégustations les pieds dans l’eau, le pays de Buch dévoile l’âme d’un terroir maritime authentique.

✨ Une immersion auprès de celles et ceux qui vivent au rythme de la mer, entre tradition, transmission et attachement à leur territoire.

📌 Un voyage sensoriel entre huîtres, bars, cabanes tchanquées, savoir-faire et nature préservée.

#BassinDArcachon #Huîtres #Bar #Ostréiculture #PêcheArtisanale #CapFerret #PaysDeBuch #TerroirMaritime #DocumentaireFrance #FranceGourmande

Épicerie Fine – Terroirs Gourmands (Saison7) :
E02 – Huîtres et bar du Pays de Buch
E03 – Bulot et topinambour de l’Avranchin

© Tout droits réservés – AMP
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Located in the southwest of Gironde, between the Atlantic Ocean
and the Great Landes Forest, the Arcachon basin was once
called the Little Sea of ​​Logs. In the heart of the Bûches region, the lush vegetation of the Pine Forest
and the dunes define the relief of this land, competing with the ocean
in a true beauty contest. Between Pointe aux Chevals,
Bird Island and Arcachon, a maritime setting is formed to offer
a little paradise to the people who live there. Fishermen have enjoyed
these maritime treasures for centuries. Every season, it’s a favorite product. If in summer it is the sea bream
that attracts sea hunters to the basin, in winter it is the sea bass. Over time, the basin has also
whispered its secrets into the ears of sea farmers. These oyster farmers who benefit from
the exceptional conditions here for growing oysters. After studying biological analysis, Fabrice Vigier decided to take over
his grandparents’ oyster farming business. A return to his roots
that he does not regret. This is really where I
meditate, where I recharge my batteries. This is where I exist. My life has made that all of a sudden, you
All of a sudden, you return to your origins. That is to say, my grandfather who was
there and who was the poet, an oyster farmer poet, he wrote about
his problems when he was sailing. My grandmother who was always
very attentive to me. And then, and then I say to myself: Why did I
go to school to study? It brought me things. On the other hand, when you come back here,
when you see the sun rising, when you see that everyone is
n’t yelling at each other, there’s no noise, you say to yourself: This is where I need to be. Fabrice is not the only one
to appreciate this lifestyle. With mild temperatures and good
water salinity, the Arcachon basin perfectly meets
the requirements of oyster farming, but also of their reproduction. These millions of tiny larvae make
the basin the largest producer of spat in France. The oyster enters
its spawning period from the moment it passes the 22, 23 degree mark. And so the pool has this particularity,
that the water heats up enough so that it becomes a natural nursery. And so the oysters are
milky in July-August. And in fact, this milt
is the gamettes that it will release into the environment. And so these gamettes will
fertilize in the natural environment and create small larvae which,
very quickly, in the first 15 days of their life,
will need a support to exist. And we offer them this support to exist
through tiles and shovels.
You’re here, you see. There are 10 to 12 oysters
concentrated there. These are the future
oysters for three years. A whole program awaits Fabrice and his
oysters over the next three years. From 2m Moreover,
the oysters are raised in bags with more or less fine mesh which will be
changed as they grow. The Arcachon basin has several
oyster farms, each with its own particularity. Semi-breeding parks preparing
larvae intended for other oyster-farming regions in France,
but also various oyster refining and fattening parks. It is both the exposure to
bad weather, to currents,
it is the exposure to a quantity of food which will be
less at the bottom of the pool than at its entrance. So, that’s a little bit of what
we do. It took several centuries
for oyster farmers to achieve this perfect knowledge of their basin. For enthusiasts like Fabrice,
it is now a true art to work with the flavor of mollusks,
until they obtain the subtlety that is the hallmark of the region. When you bring her to a park that is
subject to tides, this restricted area that we call it, she concentrates her
energy on making mollusks. Metabolism changes
and that’s something extraordinary. And at the same time,
if you put them in a park that is agitated just by the swing
of the marshes, well there, the center shocks and so there is
a shell that becomes very calcified, it is very strong. So, if you want to do it
properly, we did two or three or four different places. It is not explosive compared
to others that are iodized or very salty. And then, all of a sudden, you realize
that, actually, she’s good. It’s good, it’s not sickening,
it’s not too salty, it’s not too salty. She’s just balanced.
She is balanced. And then you notice that
when you continue to eat it, it stays in your mouth longer than other oysters. This is what makes
the oysters of the basin special. This taste of bird explodes in you and then,
all of a sudden, it’s there. That’s what the job is all about. It’s creativity, it’s art,
it’s an artistic profession. The art of playing with nature,
the whims of the sea and those of the weather, is also the work
of Christophe Castaings, who has been fishing for sea bass for 30 years in the Acachon basin. Today the weather
is really not nice. We see over there that it’s black, black, black. We’ll give it a try, we’ll go see. Come on. The sea bass was already there when I started,
and even for my grandfather, the fish to catch was
the fish that sold best. There has always been bass in the pond,
since on some houses, even in Gujet-Mestras,
where there were meters of boat, they had already drawn fish
that looked strangely like bass. And these were houses that were
built a century and a half ago. It was truly an
emblematic fish, yes, of the pond. Sea bass can be caught all year round. While most chilly fish
flee the winter, the sea bass stays. He then seeks the depths
of the sea, where the temperatures are milder. Christophe Castaings knows that these
areas are located at the entrance to the basin, but he also has to choose the right
time to cast his nets. We put the net
in the water 20 minutes before the tide so that 20 minutes later it is lifted. The ideal is to turn,
to make large circles, to move like a snail,
ultimately, with the net. Like that, the fish, at the bottom, when it… If the water is dirty, it gets caught in it. If the water is clean, he sees the net,
he goes along it and at that moment, he gets caught in the snail.
Weather conditions and the mysteries of nature vary the number
of fish willing to be caught in the fisherman’s nets. With an average of 50,
60 kilos per day during the season, Christophe has sometimes hoisted
up to 700 kilos of bar, just as he sometimes
only managed to lift one or two. It is above all a fishing method
that allows us to catch fish while they are still alive. All the fish that we catch
are alive in the nets, unlike some
ocean fishing methods where when we catch the fish, it may be dead. So, this allows us to release
fish that are not the right size. This allows us to get to the point where we can scream
and still have a fish that is magnificent. In order to preserve natural stocks
of sea bass and allow it to replenish itself, current regulations set the
minimum size of fish caught at 38 cm. Christophe vigorously enforces
the rules, regardless of the number of fish caught. My second one is 39. There’s one for me
and one for my wife tonight. There we have the meal. I know that according to my
family tree, I’ve been here since 1680. My family has been here since 1680. So we’ve always been on the basin. Fisherman, oyster farmer,
fish seller, seller of what he could, but they have always been here. So I learned
my father’s trade. He taught me his passion,
he passed it on to me. And this passion, I end up really
loving and adoring every day that I go to work. Even on bad days, even on
rainy days, even on windy days. I enjoy going to work. Of course, if there is
fish, it’s better. As a breeder, Fabrice is certain he will not return empty-handed. So
there, once we come back from the tide, we unload the boat,
we put them in this hopper. We call it a hopper. So there’s pressurized water,
pressurized salt water coming in. And so that creates a wash. There is a conveyor belt that brings
the oysters onto another conveyor belt and on which
the oysters will then be sorted. Once freed from mud and other
marine deposits, the oysters are then sorted by size. Category 1 refers to the largest
mollusks and 5 to the smallest. In number 3, number 2, it is
really the oysters that are consumed the most. It’s really a matter of taste,
but despite everything, among the specialists, a beautiful oyster number 2,
number 1, very fleshy. It’s going to be, it’s going to be
something very interesting. And when an oyster is called special,
we are talking about very specific characteristics. In fact, we take the total mass,
the weight of the drained mollusk, and then we make a ratio,
and when it passes the coefficient of ten and something, well we
enter the special category. And the more significant this ratio is,
the more likely the oyster will have better sensations in mud. The regulations governing
Austreiculture are very strict. After being sized,
the oysters will rest for a few hours in the water basin where they
will be filtered and freed from any residue. When you arrive in a category
on the Arcachon basin, which is the majority of the
oyster parks, in category A, it means that the water has no
statistical possibility of being contaminated by a bacteria which can
give you a maximum of wind pain. That’s most of
the pelvis, that’s it. And then, in fact, afterwards,
there is the category which can be parks which are a little
closer to the port area like that. And there, at times, if there is
rain like that, it can. So it’s the filtration,
sterilization, refrigeration circuit, so that everything is at the same
temperature, always in the same condition. Fabrice can finally fill the baskets
with his oysters according to the orders he receives from professionals
and individuals. Major investments in the
wastewater treatment system now allow 80% of the oyster farming areas
in the basin to benefit from excellent water quality. The Arcachon Basin Intercommunal Union
wants to mobilize local stakeholders like Fabrice and his colleagues
around a future brand, Ciba. Objective: to promote local products while protecting the environment. Deeply invested in this project,
Isabelle Galignée and Mélina Roth regularly meet with
these economic players. How are you ?
It’s good and you ? Welcome to… This is not a label,
a territorial brand. It is a collective commitment
to display a new ambition for the basin and to all become actors
in the promotion and preservation of this space, so that we can all
enter into a virtuous development which is the more we develop, the more we preserve. That’s the goal, to have
a city that is beautiful. It is very full. So here we are at the beginning
of something good. Because everyone will also set their own
standards in terms of product quality.
Of course. If there is one product that is truly
distinctive to the Arcachon basin, it is the oyster from Cap Ferret. We come to the basin to taste
oysters because it is a small piece of the basin that we are tasting. And I think that oyster farmers are
increasingly keen to talk about their expertise in the basin,
which is very specific, more than
just identifying the product. First of all, before the trade is done
on the product and we talk about money, that’s not what we should do. It’s really about saying where it comes from,
how we make it, under what conditions, and
how we’re going to receive this product. And then, at the end, the word commerce comes in.
Indeed, it allows us to overcome the production-preservation divide. On the contrary, here we show that we
are on a – Protection efforts are already underway and carried out
by several long-standing actors. Sanitation, water quality. So many efforts that were
already taken care of well before the creation of the park and that it is now appropriate
to continue, to pursue. And so, to continue to have
an environment that allows oyster farming with very good water quality,
which allows fishing and which allows a very favorable reception capacity
for species that come on wider migratory routes, whether
marine species or birds. The word harvest
means that we are cultivators. It means that we are farmers. There is work And so everything comes
together in symbiosis with nature. And that’s what we must not forget,
that what she wants to give us, we must know how to give back to her at times. And the finished product
is truly what the soul of the horse breeders and nature has allowed. This morning, the first to benefit from the riches of the sea are the local fishmongers and wholesalers. Far from being a noisy hustle and bustle,
the fishing auctions take place in imperturbable calm. Christophe sells his
fish here twice a week. This morning, it was Stéphane,
the tortorec, who bought his bar. A local fishmonger
that Christophe knows very well. Stephane.
Hi Christophe. How are you doing ?
How are you. I came to see.
Yeah. Did you see that my fish was gone? Did
you buy it? Yes, I made a nice sea bass tank.
Okay, yes. It wasn’t cheap. There are a lot less of them, there are
a lot less of them, that’s for sure. But for us,
the price is attractive. You, a little less.
For me, a little less. The price is attractive, that’s it. It’s the big fishmongers
from Arcachon who buy my fish. But there are also all the small
fish shops around the Arcachon basin, practically all the way to Bordeaux. The guys go down to the Arcachon fish market to
buy the fish. Afterwards, all the surplus is sold
to large fishmongers who then send it to the big markets,
as happy as I can say. It’s just a quality job, there’s no
better one. In terms of quality, it’s the best. It is not damaged in the nets,
it is not damaged in the trawl either. So there they fish it out, they circle it,
and then it comes out of the other one right away. Let others fish,
it will be a little more half-handed. Alongside this beautiful display of fresh fish, Stéphane also offers a
delicatessen section, where seafood and fish from the pond are showcased
through homemade recipes. At the helm of this well-stocked department is
Emmanuel, who is preparing today to cook the famous sea bass
caught by Christophe. So, the flesh of the sea bass is
very firm, it
holds up well when cooked, whether poached, grilled, or
pan-fried, as we’re going to do here. And the advantage is that
it’s super fresh, so it’s going to be a delicious fish. But that’s not all. According to its fans, the Arcachon Sea Bass
also has an inimitable aroma. Some say it has a slightly
nutty taste when cooked, but oh well. There is a slight taste, of course,
compared to the sea bass that is caught in the Mediterranean. It really has a very
particular taste, very salty compared to what it eats, because it eats a lot
of small crabs, things like that. So it really has a different flavor
than a Sea Bass that comes from the Mediterranean. So. There, for today’s recipe,
we’re going to need to sit down the skin a little,
like that, just a small incision, to prevent
it from shrinking during cooking. So it will stay flat. Here,
people like to see it whole, with vegetables around it, vegetables just
cooked like that, with a little broth. It has to have some flavor,
though. But no spices that could distort the vegetable or the sea bass. Let’s leave Christophe’s bar,
waiting for our future gourmet taste buds, to meet Fabrice
in the tasting cabin that he runs with his wife, Géraldine, who has
also fallen in love with the region. There, both of you like that,
or should I put you on this one? How much should you put in? I’m not from here. I am, as I have
often been told, a foreigner here. I’m coming, I’m
100 percent pure butter. I am from Saint-Malo, I was born and
raised in Saint-Malo. And then, it’s a bit like
the mysteries of love. Here, I’ll let you watch for two
minutes, I’ll be right back. As soon as she met Fabrice, who was also piqued by a passion for
oysters, Géraldine left her job as a nurse and joined him in his
oyster production, while making a place for herself. And tasting
is really my part, a bit like my baby for 15 years now,
where it is I who wanted to develop it a lot. And what’s rewarding
is selling this product in a short cycle. That is to say, it’s your product,
you know where it comes from. I always said that
if I like something, I can sell it. So,
in our country, the tradition is really to eat oysters
accompanied by a sausage, a crépinette or a small piece of pâté. When the old people went out to sea
a few years ago, they generally didn’t always have time
to make us a snack. So there were always at least
oysters on board and pâté. So in fact, during lunch,
very often, it’s a yaque of oysters, a yaque of pâté. There
is a rich history in terms of production here,
with Napoleon and the parks, all the Empress parks,
all the parks at the level of Bird Island, or at the level of
Bird Island, you see, with the Tianquées cabins,
which were made to guard the imperial parks, precisely. So, it’s a story that reminds me
a little bit of Brittany, where you still have a certain
rich cultural identity. That’s great. We are having a great time.
Yeah ? It’s very good. So we’re not talking about big
oysters, but they are very meaty. So that’s what’s interesting.
They are delicious. It’s perfect.
As for the provenance. I’m very proud of having gotten to
where we both are, having fought where many
people think we’re losing. I see now,
when we settled in 2002, there were two or three of us living in South African cabins. We were taken for
utopians and dreamers. And now, 15 years later, we are without a cabin
on the public maritime domain. Yes, it’s right there. THANKS.
Goodbye, ladies and gentlemen. For Fabrice and Géraldine,
the direct link between the Austréiculteur and the consumer has been essential for the successful development of their business. For his part, Christophe also tries
to make his profession known to tourists. I have been working on the dock with a boat for excursions for 30 years now. And for six months now,
I have become president of my company, where we manage around thirty boats
that take trips around the dock. Benjamin, you’re going to be
right in the second minute. All right, that’s it, without running away. We’ll see who wins. I’m the first. This is the edge of the pool.
He is handsome. Do you want to take it out? Do you want to try?
How do we do it? Ultimately, it has little
spines that are upside down here. So, you have to come and get the stitch
in one direction to do it the other. You have to…
You do it like this and that’s it. And then you get rid of it. And once the gills
are in you slide it in. Why are there these reds? Because it’s fresh.
It’s called fresh fish. Christophe shows
his visitors the daily routines of his profession, who are curious to learn new things
about the fish he eats every day. I simply value my profession
and my work by trying to share it. But it’s often that in the summer, I have
children, parents with children. I can even have
elderly people come as couples. As long as the person is
asking, they want it, everything is fine. I mean, if you go to a museum,
you don’t have to go to a museum. We like it, it’s the same thing. So I show them around
my office and my museum. The sea, like a museum, and know-how like an art. Christophe,
Fabrice and Géraldine promote their region through their love
of history and local culture. They also ensure the survival of
their ancestors’ trades by reconnecting with consumers
through modern activities and generous sharing of knowledge. In the southwest of the Cotentin peninsula, Avranchin is a small, prosperous region of livestock farming and tourism. To the northwest is Grandville,
nicknamed the Monaco of the North, due to its rocky promontory
overlooking its magnificent bay. This is where
lobster, clams and scallops are brought in every day. A whole range of artisanal and diverse fishing
makes Grandville the leading shellfish fishing port in France. Avranchin also benefits from a
certain microclimate, due to the presence of multiple harbors
retaining clouds along the coast. This particularity has made this
region, since always, an important market gardening area. And Norbert Nicolet
knows this better than anyone. It was here that he decided
to grow a multitude of plant species, such as this curious vegetable
that is nicknamed the Canadian artichoke, the Jerusalem artichoke. It could almost be reminiscent of
the corsair who stands proudly at the top of Grandville Bay
in his fierce desire to defend the common good against all odds. Known for his immoderate love of the sea,
the famous sailor daily scrutinizes the waltz of boats coming
and going in the port. Just like Didier le Guélinel, a
young retiree who still keeps an eye on the whelk after having fished for it
with passion for more than 35 years. His boat is still
in operation, however, starting at 4 a.m. in the port of Grandville. Didier’s brother and son, Johan and Martin, are already on deck preparing the bait,
along with Romain, the third sailor in the crew. The bait is essentially crab. And then, a piece of fish,
a hard fish, a section of dogfish, so as to
put a section of dogfish per trap. There you go, the boat is gone. So there, at night, as is often the case,
because we can’t leave Grandville at low tide, we are
forced to leave when the sea is there. When we leave at 5:00, we usually come back
at 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Ten hours for someone who is not
used to going to sea is a lot. But for a fisherman,
a ten-hour tide is actually pretty damn short. And what I really liked about this
job was the slightly rock’n’roll side of it. It’s very punchy, there is
n’t much downtime. Let’s go, let’s hit it. I loved that. Whelk fishing is indeed quite
rock’n’roll, but with a very precise choreography. And it’s Johan, Didier’s brother,
who leads the dance. He hoists on board each
locker placed here the day before. Martin then takes over by emptying it
into a machine which only keeps whelks of a size equal to
or greater than 4.5 centimeters. This machine not only sizes
the whelks, but immediately throws all the small ones back into the water. The fact that the small whelk taken out of the water
is not out for more than three or four seconds, you will see,
it is very fast, is immediately put back in the water at the very spot where it was caught. So in a biotope that is
favorable to it, since that is where it began to grow,
it is really essential for the survival of the species and of the fisherman. Because without cash,
there are more fishermen. We understood that well. Indeed, from 2004 onwards,
whelk fishing began to show clear signs of slowing down, with
yields having fallen by half in ten years.
The quotas are then revised downwards. And in 2007, fishing time
was reduced, with a total closure in January, the
species’ breeding season. The role of the third sailor is also
essential, since he is responsible for re-baiting each trap. 720 per day of fishing,
which is far from discouraging a leucuylinelle, because the whelk
here is a family affair. The whelk, I started with that. So, for me, it’s obvious that I should
continue fishing for this species. I started with
my big brother Didier. I must have spent three or
four years as a deckhand. And then after that,
I had a few opportunities where he let me have the boat so
I could learn how to sail. I like it. We are in a natural setting
that evolves daily. We never have the same
conditions and I like that. And it is precisely in the heart of this terroir,
churned by the largest marshes in Europe, that the whelk from
Grandville Bay acquires its inimitable flavor thanks to a
very sandy marine environment. There is no risk here of the gastropod having
an unpleasant taste of mud, as can sometimes happen. The water had barely returned
to the port of Grand’Ville when the Astragalus already appeared there. The day of fishing comes to an end for Romain,
Johan and Martin, who are not unhappy to be able to enjoy a
few hours with their families before heading back out to sea the next day. It’s just the love of a profession
that was passed on to me against my will. I never imagined one
of my children would do this job. I wouldn’t necessarily have imagined that my
little brother would dedicate himself to this either. And by golly, the way we did it, they
liked it too. And they too did it by choice. We are not fishermen by default,
we are not fishermen because we could not do anything else. No, we really wanted
to do this job. And that’s important. Fishing is not a tough job. A hard job is a job you do
n’t want to do. A few kilometers away, in Anoville,
a young man seems to have already adopted Didier’s philosophy. This is Norbert Nicolet,
who works on his small, human-sized farm where
more than 450 plant species grow. And this morning, armed with his pitchfork, he sets off to dig up a strange treasure. You have to give it a little energy
so that it jumps a little. Harvesting Jerusalem artichokes is always quite tedious
. There you go, here we go. But if you want to do it carefully, you
have to do it with a fork. It doesn’t resist the shock very well. It’s not like the potato. The potato is something
that is very resistant to shock. That’s why it’s
better to do it with a fork. More work is always… It’s less easy than chopping
a salad, that’s for sure. But hey, it’s better than salad,
at least from my point of view. It’s very juicy, it breaks quite cleanly. I find it a bit like the color of a
potato, quite pale, quite white. Gorgeous. It really has a nice texture. It’s very firm. It’s February,
they haven’t moved. These vegetables are also of interest,
winter vegetables like that which keep well in the ground. This means you’re sure
to keep them all winter. You won’t miss any.
Jerusalem artichoke is a sure bet. It’s something
to sell during the winter. We only take them out on demand,
as and when needed, because they are not like potatoes. The skin of the potato is
protective for preservation, but not the Jerusalem artichoke.
So it will soften. It’s from the moment
you take it out of the ground. That’s a beautiful piece. He’s going to make a
good part of our basket. There are people. So, in terms of growth,
it’s interesting. It’s a bit like the way it’s grown,
it’s a bit like the potato. We follow the same rhythms,
so we will plant in April-May. So we will choose a plant that has
several eyes. We call them eyes,
they are starting points, they are where there will be buds. So the more old there is on top,
the more stems it will make. So the more stems it produces,
the more photosynthesis it will undertake and then the more tubers it will produce afterwards,
because it will have more energy for that. It’s a really simple vegetable that
everyone can have in their garden. And then, as soon as you leave a little
piece, you leave a little thing like that, there, next year,
you have a Jerusalem artichoke foot in operation. It’s clear. So, it’s a vegetable that is said to be forgotten,
ancient, but which, I think, is coming back at the end of the day. There you go, it’s obvious,
we’re seeing more and more of it on stalls, in supermarkets,
things like that. And it will remain quite marginal, I think. But he will regain his place, perhaps
the place he lost after the war. Where potatoes were rationed
for the military and as a result, the people had little to eat. And so, that’s why they all had
a little bit of Jerusalem artichoke in their garden. And that’s why we now find ourselves
with old people in the market who say to us: Oh no,
no, no, we can’t eat Jerusalem artichokes, it reminds us of the war.
All that. So these are bad memories
for them, we can understand. But despite everything, we
must not forget that it is a vegetable with great culinary interest. A nice little taste of artichoke heart,
it has a very good aroma, it’s very delicate. Let’s leave
Norbert and his wheelbarrow for a moment to find Didier the next day,
at the Grandville auction. From 7:00 a.m. onwards, other
types of wheelbarrows enter the scene. This is where
the 6,000 tonnes of whelks caught each year in Granville are sold,
making it the leading European port for whelk fishing. The first sign of freshness
is a whelk which, when touched, shrinks. This is proof that he is
very much alive, extremely fresh. This product, well, it came
out of the water less than 24 hours ago. We can clearly see that this one
tried to escape. This is proof that he
is perfectly alive. I know these whelks by heart. I can give you everyone’s first name. If
Didier seems to be carrying out real quality control, it is because today
he chairs the Grand’Ville-Mère cooperative, responsible
for processing these whelks. The cooperative,
of which one buyer is present in the sales room, brings together half
of the producers of Grand’Ville. It is an auction room
with a starting price. This price is first of all
descending auctions. So we start from a
relatively high price. It goes down, down, down, down,
down, down, until a buyer presses
the button and takes the lot. If it starts to get a little too
low, the cooperative buyer will
immediately press the button and buy everything so that the prices
remain at a satisfactory level that allows the fishermen to make a living. This can only be done if
we are able to sell the products. This is what we are going to do with these whelks
that were caught yesterday, which will be cooked this morning. There, we really have an
extra-short circuit and an extra-fresh product. In fact, the Grand’Ville-Mère cooking workshop is located
just ten minutes from the Auction
, where the whelks purchased by the cooperative can be found. This is where they will be cooked
in a pan, or rather in the oven, since it is steam cooking
that will ensure that the gastropod retains all its flavor and tenderness. In the past, we sold
a lot of raw whelks. Today, consumers are much
more accustomed to ready-to-eat consumption. We had to take up this challenge,
respond to this requirement. This is what we did thanks to the workshop. To offer an impeccable product
to the consumer, it is still necessary to ensure that there are no grains of sand
or pieces of shell hidden inside the whelks. They are then immersed in a
bubble bath, made up exclusively of water from the nearby sea. There we have a whelk, we have a whelk
freed from all these little parasites. We can see it clearly, it is very clean. We look inside, there is… We look inside, we can take it out. There, and there,
there, inside the fold of the flesh, there is no sand, there is nothing. We really have a great product. That makes you want it. Well, we’ll see. Fishermen must adapt
to changing consumption patterns and the various challenges they
face, particularly environmental issues. Laurence Aigron-Masset, a
biological engineer at SMEL, sea and coast synergy, helps them
analyze these new issues. Well, listen, we were seeing each other today,
you know, I called you to find out a little bit about the quantities
of plastic waste generated by the activity. So let’s take a
closer look at the quasi-abulo fishing gear. So actually it is made up
of several parts, there is the bell. So I think it’s
polyethylene, made from petroleum. Very clearly. Would you be sensitive to purchasing
equipment that might have used plastic waste? For equivalent quality, I would
definitely prefer recycled material. All right. The purpose of this questionnaire
is to meet with professionals to ask them about the
fishing gear they use, the traps. Finally, there is a lot, we find
a lot of plastic, ultimately. And once they’re used up, they’re thrown away. So the idea is to recover this
waste, which is actually a real raw material,
to make plastics from it. Because in fact, one
person’s waste can be another person’s raw material. Since 2012, SMEL has also been involved
in a project studying the impact of global warming
on whelk reproduction. Study carried out at the request of the fishermen
themselves, concerned about preserving the resource. You know, you remember,
we studied different scenarios. So, the whelks are in water
at the temperature here in the Cotentin. And then we made two scenario jumps,
a scenario plus 3 degrees, so hot, and then a scenario,
on the contrary, colder. And in fact,
we realize that in the hot scenario, the females
practically do not lay eggs. The bridges are deteriorating. The hatching is,
so to speak, non-existent. So, you can see that this will have
an impact on recruitment. This confirms what we feared:
that if it increases further, there will eventually be more whelks. Even today,
there is a tendency to fish more. So it snowballs,
we further weaken the stock, it can happen very quickly. So there, we will have to
be very vigilant. I’ve spent my entire career
fishing for whelk. Today, my son and my little brother
take over the torch on my boat with my fishing rights. And I hope that if they want to,
their children will be able to do it. If they want to do something else,
they do something else. The problem is not there.
But the sea does not belong to us. The sea belongs to our children. This saying, dear to Didier,
echoes the famous phrase of Saint-Exupéry: We do not inherit
the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. She also shares
Norbert’s philosophy, putting his heart into his work on his
farm, resolutely looking towards the future. Indeed,
although he has his hands in the soil all day, his head
seems firmly screwed onto his shoulders when he talks about his vision
of agriculture today. And it begins
with the earth itself. There, the earth, it starts
to be super furniture and everything. There is a mixture of materials. It is rich matter,
matter that decomposes. So, there are mineralizations,
there are things like that which gradually release
nutrients for the plants. It is wealth,
it is lasting fertility. If we put fertilizer on, the fertilizer
comes, it is consumed, it goes away. There, the hill, if you look, it’s black. The earth is black, normally
it is a little gray. It’s a sponge, it’s
smooth, it’s lumpy. As the Burgundians would say,
it’s couscous. There, the mounds are made of wood,
a layer of straw manure, a layer of earth and a layer of straw. Look at this. It’s so beautiful. But last winter
there were mushrooms everywhere. They came on their own.
We didn’t inoculate anything, we didn’t put anything in. They came on their own,
they are already here. We put wood in the
perma mounds, all that. So in the woods, there are some. We are recreating a somewhat
forested soil, a living soil. The goal of sustainability
in every way is important. In fact, ever since I was little,
I have had a project of self-sufficient collective farms at the start. But in fact,
autarkic is not the right solution if we want to change the world a little,
if we want to change society a little , to make it change direction. So, that’s why the project took
shape in a more collective way, but it takes time. There, in ten years, we will have a system that will
perhaps work quite well. This is a guess. Already there, it has improved a lot. It gets better every year. We produce better and better,
with more and more diversity from all around the world. And if there’s one place where Norbert is
proud to offer this diversity, it’s the Grandville covered market
on Saturday mornings. There, he can express all his
artistic sensitivity by designing his stall as a painter would with his canvas. There’s an artistic research
behind all this, that we try to… People, they have to
please their eyes too. And we put Jerusalem artichokes
in baskets, it’s easier. And then it’s the same, you know. It’s a product like small potatoes
or small things that stay in a basket, that are well displayed,
you see, with the impression of volume in the basket, you know. That makes it stand out a lot more. The customer also finds it more attractive,
so he wants to consume it more. These are products that we need
to promote a little, because people, well,
don’t consume them regularly either. It’s not a vegetable
like a carrot, though. Every Saturday, Norbert is happy
to bring consumers back to this vegetable, which has been neglected for a while,
in favor of more standardized cooking methods. And we can say that it works. The Jerusalem artichoke basket empties
as the market fills up. Whose is it?
Hello Mrs. Do you make a little Jerusalem artichoke
from time to time? Yes. We haven’t been giving a damn for a while,
we’re all over the place. But it’s true that when I come here,
I try to find vegetables that are out of the ordinary. Afterwards, it’s learning how to cook them
because steamed… Because raw, it’s very good as an appetizer,
sliced ​​like that, with a little sweet and salty sauce, with
sesame seeds and a little soy sauce, a little mustard,
it’s excellent. I
love being at the market because there we communicate about our products,
how we grow them, and our practices. People, most of the time, also
join in and support us. So it’s still encouraging. That’s what gives us, let’s say,
the punch, the energy to continue working like crazy people
like that in the fields. We have a farm,
it’s not a production unit like a business, really. Because exploitation
means what it means. When you have a farm,
you are an operator, so you operate. So what do we exploit? The environment, the resources,
the people, all of it. We exploit life, you know. So, I like to
use the term a farm instead. And I am a peasant. We are funny market gardeners. Because life is
monotonous enough as it is. If you can’t have fun,
it’s not funny. Good humor isn’t just
reserved for the covered market. She also invites herself to the Biocop
in Grandville, where whelks straight
from Didier’s workshop have recently been found. The store manager, Éric Thizon, is
organizing a tasting there this afternoon to
introduce them to the general public. This aptly named whelk aperitif is an opportunity
for Didier to offer some advice to curious passers-by, future consumers
of whelk from Grandville Bay. They’re very tender, yeah. They’re kept in an
atmosphere, you see? Afterwards, once you have uncapped your
tray, you can eat them within three or four days, but they
will start to harden. So it’s good to remove the tops
just before eating them. We are dealing with hyper-sensitive products. It’s really seafood.
It’s really delicate. Whelk may seem rustic,
but like all seafood, it’s truly delicate. If it’s cooked, dead,
as is often the case, you really have a disgusting product. There are plenty of ways to eat whelk badly and
leave with very bad memories of it. While there is only one way to cook them well and
eat them well. Until you’ve really tasted a
well-prepared whelk, you don’t know what it is, you can’t know what it is. The Grandville Bay whelk,
in fact, has a taste… A slight nutty taste,
with a fairly pronounced seaweed flavor. There you go, it’s really… You can taste the bitterness when tasting
this whelk, it’s really… Because the local whelk,
in Switzerland, is in the process of obtaining a certain number of labels,
including the PGI, to which the biocup is sensitive. And so, the fact that thanks to the PGI,
we will be able to better sell the product of our fishing,
It allows us to fish a little less so that fishing is sustainable. Cheers.
To the PGI? Yeah, at the Belgreville whelk. Listen, to the best whelk in the world. Practice a job that you love
and share this passion with as many people as possible. This is what could define
Didier’s daily life. The same goes for the deer
on Norbert’s farm, where he passes on his knowledge day after day
to his two young apprentices, Pierre and Simon. Today he reviews a whole
range of beans that grow him. Norbert knows every detail. This one is Staraz Agorsky, right there. He is originally from Greece. He was originally from Greece. It’s still really good. It’s
also called Yin-Yang, you see. Because there is the little white dot
and the little white dot and the little black dot, like a little Yin-Yang sign. I’ve
been an apprentice here for six months. It’s a farm with a future,
which will be in constant evolution, with more and more work
in cultivation, given that we have not used
fertilizers, nor hybrid seeds. Completely neither. Overall, we’re
really looking for sustainability within the production system itself,
but also because if I took Pierre and Simon on as apprentices,
it’s to have people who, two years after their thing,
want to have a contract here and want to work on the farm. The goal is to sustain
their activity within the farm. It took me a while, but
if I can teach them all that in less time, they’ll catch up
and be able to experiment. They will always have their
youthful dynamism. They will learn more
and become better at production. Looking to the future by passing on
traditional and ecological techniques,
this is the value shared by Norbert and Didier, fervent defenders
of Avranchin products, with their inimitable character and taste.