Salt Bay
Photography Aishy
If you’re gonna make a proper brisket then you need a lot of salt. So we took a trip to the Bay of Biscay — l’Île de Noirmoutier to be specific. Only accessible from mainland France at low tide, this little island is home to around a hundred salt workers known as sauniers, who spend their summers manually harvesting salt from their own ‘oeillet’ — or harvesting ponds.
In the Middle Ages the marshes were excavated by peasants, when salt was such a sought-after commodity it was known as white gold. Today’s sauniers have inherited over a thousand years of history and tradition, and still use the same techniques to harvest their salt to this day. The marshes must have a clay bottom to prevent the sea water seeping into the soil, the ponds must always have 5cm of water in them and during the clement summer months when the sun and wind have done their best evaporating jobs, the sauniers harvest the salt crystals using long-handled salt rakes. No machines are used, it’s all done by hand. It’s here that they create the fleur de sel and coarse salt sought after by chefs around the world. Huge thanks to Karine and Sébastien from Le Marais Mounet who showed us around their oeillets.
