You can smell the salt way out in the Marais Salants where the salt marshes of the Guérande invite anyone to feast on it’s rich bounty – so sip heartily from a glass of champagne and eat as many of the local oysters  as you  possibly can, because the experience is always an unforgettable one. “The houses here are white or pastel, the sun bounces off the flats with a not unpleasant glare, and even the salt workers themselves, traditionally at least, wear white breeches” (author unknown). As life is impossible without water, so it is impossible without salt and here you’ll find the finest salt of all.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE SALT OF THE GUÉRANDE

• Salt was on of the most important reasons that the Romans invaded Gaul.
• In the 16th century the much hated salt tax extended to the western parts of France and was one of the primary reasons for the revolts. Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat confirms the story of desperate citizens of Bordeaux who grabbed the man responsible for administering salt tax in the area, cut him up and salted his parts – in the same way that a pig was salted.
• One of the reasons for the Revolution was that the aristocracy paid no salt tax – but the poor grain harvests and the resultant famine, drove the masses over the edge.

The history of harvesting salt starts 2,700 years ago on the Guérande peninsula in the southern tip of Brittany, near the Loire estuary. In the early days, huge clay urns filled with saltwater were simply warmed in massive ovens until the water evaporated and salt appeared, almost magically. Roman ovens, in fact, are still intact today and bear proof of this – salt was, after all, essential for the production of garum, without which no Roman chef could survive.  Around 1000 AD salt extraction processes changed when man learnt how to exploit the power of the wind and the tides.  The inhabitants of the area built large salt basins that have, over time, become the landscape we know today as Bassin de Guérande and Bassin du Mes. Some of these basins are still being used today – a series of canals and basins are built into the flat loamy area and every fourteen days, at high tide, the puludier lets sea water run through the canals into a large receptive reservoir where impurities will be collected when he opens the sluices. In the height of summer, when evaporation begins – 34 grams of salt will be produced for every one liter of water. From there on the water will move through a watercourse to the final basins, called the fards where the final yield will be in the vicinity of 200 grams of salt, per liter. Harvesting time is from June to September and the farmers keep on pushing the salt to the edges with rakes, collecting it as it piles up.  The main harvest is the evenly sized gray crystals, but before this, the first fine white crystals are deposited on the surface of the salt solution where they are hand gathered – the ultimate in salt and worth every penny of the high price we pay. Guérande supplies about 83 % of all sea salt extracted  from the Atlantic in this exclusively traditional manner.  Naturally there are other salt basins in the area – further south at Noirmoutier we find the Ile de Ré and also an area just off from the Ile d’Oléron, but the fleur du sel comes from the Guérande. The chief salt production for the region takes place in the salt-marshes at Aigues Mortes on the Mediterranean coast.

Life without salt would not only be unthinkable – it would also be impossible as we use it in almost everything we cook and we will die without it.  So for today, we give you a recipe for salmon made with quite a handful of wild asparagus – my children loved picking these when they were small along the banks of the lake where we lived in Lazio, Italy. It is, actually, called salicornia (image above) a vegetable best  described by  Carl Hodges when he wrote about it in the LA Times – salicornia (known as herb St. Pierre in French or St. Peter’s herb in English)  is a plant  “nourished by seawater  ……… a  so-called halophyte, or salt-loving plant, the briny succulent thrives in hellish heat and pitiful soil on little more than a regular dousing of ocean water. Several countries are experimenting with salicornia and other saltwater-tolerant species as sources of food. Known in some restaurants as sea asparagus, salicornia can be eaten fresh or steamed, squeezed into cooking oil or ground into high-protein meal!”  Now there’s a thought for all enterprising young entrepreneurs living near the sea!

DOS DE SAUMON GRILLE AU FLEUR DU SEL

(Grilled salmon steaks in sea salt)

Ingredients (per single salmon steak)

• 1 1 x thick cut salmon steak with the skin on and cut from the fillet
• 1 1 x tablespoon butter
• 1 1 x tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (the French use duck or goose lard)
• 1 x  cup salicornia
• 1 x  teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 x  teaspoon concentrated veal stock
• 1 x tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 x extra tablespoon salted butter
• 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
• 2 tablespoons soya sauce
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon fleur du selk
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Fennel leaves

Method

Pre-heat oven to 200 C

• Rinse the salmon steak, if necessary and dry well.
• Put in the refrigerator to dry for about 20 minutes.
• Braise on the skin side on a warm plate for about 4 minutes (less if the salmon steak is small)
• Dilute the veal stock in 1 tablespoon of water, add the lemon juice to this as well as the butter and heat gently without boiling it!
• Set aside and keep warm.
• Make a marinade from the vinegar, the soya sauce and the sugar.
• Coat the skin with it and grill for a minute or so.
• Remove immediately and sprinkle it with the salt crystals and ground black pepper.
• Warm the salicornia and serve the salmon with the skin side up, sprinkle with fennel leaves, top with the salicornia and drizzle over the sauce.

The Galette comes from this region – it’s known as a jalet in Brittany where it was baked instead of bread on a sizzling hot, flat stone.  Even though buckwheat originally comes from Asia, it arrived in France via the Crusaders when it was known as Sarasin (Saracen), so named because of the dark colour of the flour. Breton farmers have grown it for a very long time and the wheat thrives in the relatively barren region.

PÂTE À GALETTES DE BLÉ NOIR (BUCKWHEAT PANCAKES)

Ingredients

• 250 g buckwheat flour
• 1 large egg
• 500 ml water
• 1 tablespoon course sea salt
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• Additional butter

Method

• Sieve the flour into a bowl and whisk the egg into it with an electric mixer.
• Add the salt and gradually add the water so that a liquid batter is formed.
• Mix well and allow to rest overnight.
• Whisk again and add the melted butter.
• Heat the pan, grease very well with butter and fry, using only about one ladle of the mixture at a time.
• Flip over and serve with a fried egg in the middle, flipping the pancake over.

WHAT ARE SALT FLOWERS?

When salt workers pull the salt onto the round platform made of clay and let it drain for a night, the  Guérande coarse salt gets its grey colour, but  the salt flower is derived from the thin layer of crystallised salt formed on the surface of the “œillets“. This delicate layer of fine, snow-like crystals (which have never touched clay) is attentively gathered by the salt worker using a lousse à fleur. Fleur de Sel is formed under specific weather conditions and, provided the small quantity produced, Guérande Salt Flowers are considered a rare, valuable product.