- For as long as I've been coming
to the West Coast of France,
I have always been intrigued by the salt marshes.
I just find them so fascinating.
This is where they harvest all of that beautiful French salt
that you see in the markets, the Fleur de sel.
But I actually don't know that much about the process
and how the salt is actually harvested.
So I thought that would be something fun
that we could learn about together.
Come on, let's go check it out, I have my hat.
The salt marsh that we're visiting today
is called Predevie and you have to walk in a bit
to actually get to the basins,
but the countryside is beautiful, and the best way
to learn about it is to join the tour.
Our tour guide for the day is Alexie
and he's the one who owns the salt marsh
and harvests all the salt.
Another thing that you see in the salt marshes,
which are really interesting,
is amazing amount of bird life.
In fact, the owner of this salt marsh
has dedicated a certain basin just for nesting birds.
So he's just left the basin alone so that the birds
can have their privacy to do their nesting
and last week, there were some people here
who saw lots of baby birds.
That would've been something to see.
There are over 10,000 acres of salt marshes
in the region of (indistinct) Predevie.
While most of the salt production today is done by
big companies to support the mass consumption of salt,
there are a few of these independently owned salt marshes
that are still producing salt in the traditional way,
with techniques that date back to as far back as the Romans
and when you see what these techniques are,
it's not hard to imagine that they probably
haven't changed very much since way back when.
The salt production process begins here,
where the ocean and river meet.
This water then travels up through these small channels,
filtering itself in a natural way,
until it ends up in the basins.
The basins are manmade and filled
with a clay soil at the bottom.
The clay soil is waterproof.
It's this waterproof nature that keeps the water
inside the basin and prevents it from seeping out.
But as the sun beats down, the evaporation begins
and this is what starts a thermal shock
that creates a crystallization of the salt inside the water.
On the way to see where they actually harvested the salt,
we spotted the famous Salicorne plant.
Now, this is something that I have seen in France
for the last few years but I never understood what it was.
It usually comes in a little jar like this,
it's sold in a lot of food markets.
My French family would try to explain what it was.
It's not a vegetable, it's not seaweed
but it's served as a condiment and you usually see it
either in salads or with seafood.
Alexei said you could even eat it raw
and encouraged me to give it a try.
- [Alexei] Just the top of the plant.
- Of the plant and this, you would normally cook this?
- Yeah, you can eat (speaks French)...
- (speaks French), raw, raw. - Eat yes, like this way.
(host speaks French)
- I was actually surprised by how salty it was
but in a good way, like a briny way,
kind of like a caper and apparently
I was there right at the right time to taste it.
Apparently it gets too hot in a few weeks to eat it
and it'll all turn red and dry up.
So I'm glad I had my chance to taste it while I could.
All right, now we're gonna go to the area
and see where the salt is actually harvested.
So this is where it all comes together.
To be honest, I am so impressed
by how much work goes into this salt.
No wonder it's such a treasured commodity over the years.
It's really amazing.
I think you need a lot of passion to do this type of work
and I think what's so great about France is you see
lots of artisans making food in a traditional way
and it just gives you such a greater appreciation.
And then all of the sudden, there it was,
a big pile of salt sitting there on the banks.
I couldn't believe what I was looking at was all salt.
Having grown up on the east coast in Connecticut,
I couldn't help but think that
what I was looking at was a melting snow drift.
(laughs) I couldn't believe it
and I just kept wondering, what is it all doing there?
- All right, I better catch up with the tour
and find out what this big pile of salt is all about.
- Harvesting salt is manual labor.
There is no machine that's gonna go out
to those basins and start to harvest the salt.
The only machine is Alexei with his rake and wheelbarrow.
He's the one who's gonna go out there and get the job done.
I have to admit, every time he goes out there,
I wince a little bit hoping that he's not going to fall
into these basins, but he has extreme balance and agility.
This is a man who's clearly done this several times.
The first thing he goes to harvest is the Fleur de Sel.
This is the creme de la creme of salt.
He takes his rake, which is almost like
a little shovel just to scrape it off the top.
It's so labor intensive that it gets the name
Fleur de Sel because it's thought that the salt worker is
actually picking the flowers off the top of the salt marsh.
Each basin will yield about two kilograms
or about five pounds of Fleur de Sel salt per day,
which is not a lot of salt
compared to the work that goes into it.
This is why the Fleur de Sel salt
is a bit pricier than the course salt
and it must be harvested right away because if that water
is moved or disturbed in any way, the Fleur de Sel
will just dissolve back into the basin and they'll
have to wait until it settles and collects at the top again.
It was fun to see the salt
right after it had been harvested.
It looked exactly like it does in the little pot
that I get at my local grocery store. (chuckles)
It was also pretty impressive to think of how many trips
it must have taken to build up this big mound of salt
that was actually there drying in the sun.
Next it was time to harvest the course salt.
For this, he uses a different rake.
Look at how long that handle is.
I couldn't help but think of a trapeze artist
walking on the tight rope with a long pole.
I think it takes the same amount of balance.
But for this salt, he actually digs into the basin
and starts to pull up the salt from the bottom.
It reminded me a lot of playing at the beach
during low tide in the tide pools,
because the salt really sort of resembled sand.
He just keeps scraping the salt, pushing it
from all directions of the basin until he starts
to collect a little mound at the edge,
then it's piled high into the traditional pyramid shape,
which allows the salt to dry better in the sun
and in case of rain, the water will run off the sides
and protect the salt from dissolving.
Alexie will harvest anywhere from 50 to 70 kilos
of this course salt a day per basin.
So that's about 110 to 154 pounds of salt
and that's just one basin, he has 43 more basins to go.
So during the summer months, he brings in
some seasonal workers to help with the harvest.
All right, now for the best part, we have to buy some salt.
So let's see what they have.
How cute is this, this little cabin?
All right.
Bonjour. - Bonjour.
- What's interesting about the way the salt is sold
is that it isn't sold to major supermarkets.
It's only sold to the weekly markets
that happen in the region, as well as
the little Salt Cabin here during the tourist months.
I love to bring home the Fleur de Sel
because it's so expensive back in the States
and it's such a nice local thing to bring back
that's easy to tuck in your suitcase.
This is really interesting, this actually
has the seaweed in it so if you come here,
you can take a look.
You see it says, "the big salt with the seaweed".
So that's actually the seaweed in the salt.
I was curious what you might use the seaweed salt for
and does it give the taste of the seaweed?
Maybe I could ask him?
- [Cameraman] Yes.
(both speak French)
So the seaweed salt does give the taste of seaweed.
I guess, more of like a briney taste,
almost like a cornichon or like a caper.
You do find that a lot in this part of France,
products that are made with seaweed, whether it be pesto
or seaweed and seasoning or seaweed tapenade,
I just find it really interesting.
- So he says you can use it for potatoes,
you can put it in rice so really,
you can use it for anything.
We have our Fleur de Sel
and we're gonna cook with this when we get home.
Back to my kitchen, so I'm gonna show you how to make
something really delicious for the summertime.
It's a Caramel au Beurre Sale,
served over ice cream or even a crepe
and if you wanna know how to make the crepe,
I'll leave my recipe and a link below.
So normally this recipe is made with salted butter.
So this butter is coming from the island of Noirmoutier,
which is not very far from here
and it's a salt producing island.
You can see the little salt worker there
but this butter can be hard to find outside of France.
So I'm gonna show you how to make it
with just regular unsalted butter
and then we are going to top it off with
the Fleur de Sel that we bought at the little salt boutique.
So the first thing you wanna do is melt your sugar.
So I have a cup of just white granulated sugar
that I'm gonna put into a large pot.
You want something with a heavy profile like this
because when we add our heavy cream, it is going to boil up
and you wanna make sure that it doesn't boil over.
Then you wanna put it on medium high heat
and just let it do its thing.
This is where the patience comes into play
because you really don't wanna take a fork
or a spatula and start getting in there to stirring it.
The best way to melt the sugar is just to let it melt
all on its own, swirling the pan as needed.
At first, it'll look like it's not doing anything
but you'll see around the edges, it'll start to turn
translucent and kind of amber brown.
That's what you want, you just wanna
make sure you keep an eye on it,
this isn't something you wanna walk away from
because this can burn really quickly
if you're not careful and you're not watching it.
If at any time it starts to bubble like that and smoke,
that is when you wanna turn this down
because that means it's a little too hot
and just give it a swirl 'cause the smoking
is the first step before burning (chuckles)
and once it burns, you gotta start all over again.
Burnt caramel is just not a good taste
and slowly but surely, all the sugar will melt
and it'll become a clear, beautiful caramel.
At this stage, you can use a non-stick wire whisk
and then you can put it in the pot and that way, you can
stir up any of the sugar that still needs to be melted.
Then I'm just gonna set this aside and then heat up,
in this little pan, some heavy cream.
So here in France, I think this is probably
the closest approximation we have to heavy cream
in the States, which is Creme Fleurette.
This could take a lot of trial and error
but I think this is it.
But any of you French American viewers,
if you could let me know if this is
the closest to heavy cream, I would be so appreciative.
I've tried creme liquide, I've tried creme entiere,
but I think this creme florette
would be the closest but you let me know.
All right, so in it goes, I'm just gonna use the whole thing
because depending on how runny you like it,
you may wanna use half a bottle.
You may wanna use a full bottle.
I've also found that it tends to work
a little bit better when the cream is warm.
So we're just gonna keep this up.
See, it's starting to simmer a little bit.
Once it starts to bubble like that,
then you know it's good to go.
We wanna just melt this down again, just so that it's
more liquified, that will make it easier
to combine with our heavy cream
and now we are going to slowly pour in
our heavy cream, just a little bit at a time.
Here we go, see, this is why you want
that high profile pot here.
Okay, now at this stage is when you add the butter.
So I would add about a tablespoon of unsalted butter,
in it goes and this is gonna create
that really delicious, buttery sauce.
The other thing is, is this sauce will thicken
as you let it cool, so this is really hot right now
and if I poured this on cold ice cream,
it's just gonna turn into a soupy mess.
So it's probably better to let it cool just a little bit
and as it cools, it will definitely thicken.
So a little (indistinct), I probably would just
do a pinch or two, there we go.
Now for the ice cream,
so I'm just using a high quality, vanilla ice cream.
If you're in France or you're visiting,
this is my favorite brand, this Carte Dor.
Or as my husband would say...
- [Speaker] Carte Dor.
- And it's the one thing I really miss when we go back
to the States, it's the ice cream in France.
There's nothing quite like it.
Look at that, so good.
I think we're gonna go for two scoops here.
All right, here we go.
A little drizzle will do ya.
This is such an easy dessert for summer entertaining
because you can make the sauce in advance
and then all you have to do is heat it up
and serve it with your favorite little cookies.
All right, let's give it a taste, shall we?
Oh my gosh, I love French ice cream, how good is this?
This is so delicious.
You guys have to try this
and I bet you have all of these ingredients
sitting in your pantry and fridge as we speak.
All right you guys, I hope you enjoyed the visit
and I hope you enjoyed the recipe
and I'll see you back here next week
with another one of my French adventures.
Until then, bye!