Sea salt / Guérande / worked since 1611

# Sun, wind,and a wooden rake.

Thirty-six clay pans, no pump and no machine. Sea water walks across the marsh for a fortnight and comes out as salt.

How the marsh works
From above, in July. The pink is the brine, not the light.

## Thirty-six pans

The whole works, drawn as a plan and tinted by the strength of the brine standing in each pan. Water enters at the top left and leaves as salt at the bottom right.

3°
4°
6°
8°
11°
14°
18°
22°
27°
33°
40°
48°
4°
5°
7°
10°
13°
17°
21°
26°
32°
39°
47°
57°
5°
7°
9°
12°
16°
20°
25°
31°
38°
46°
56°
68°

Degrees Baumé, measured every morning. Salt begins to fall out of solution at about 25°, which is why only the last rank is ever raked.

Nobody here makes salt. The sun and the wind make it, at a rate neither can be asked to change, and the work is entirely a matter of moving water slowly enough and getting the crop off the floor before the weather turns.

Marais Blanc is one family and two employees working pans first cut in 1611. The clay is repaired every winter by hand, because the works and the tool are the same object.

A good year is twenty-six tonnes and a bad one is nine. We have never had two good years in a row and we do not expect to.

## Five movements

Nine months of preparation for a harvest that lasts, in a good year, about ninety days.

1. 01

   ### Open the vasière

   The first basin takes sea water on a spring tide and holds it while the sun does the first two thirds of the work March
2. 02

   ### Run the adernes

   Brine walks the marsh by gravity through a chain of shallowing basins, taking about a fortnight to cross it April
3. 03

   ### Rake the œillet

   The crystallising pan. Coarse salt is drawn to the ledge with a lousse, once a day, for as long as the weather holds June – September
4. 04

   ### Lift the fleur

   The film that forms on still water on a dry evening is skimmed off by hand before it can sink Evenings
5. 05

   ### Dry and store

   Mounded on the path for a week, then carried in. Nothing is washed, nothing is ground, nothing is added September

The lousse. Five metres of wood and no metal anywhere on it.
A day’s raking, drying on the path for a week before it is carried in.

## Three rules of the marsh

None of them is a marketing position. They are all just what happens if you do otherwise.

I

### Only wood touches it

Rake, scoop, barrow and store are all wood. Metal in a pan leaves a rust bloom that will not come out of the crop and cannot be washed away without washing the salt.

II

### Nothing is added

No anti-caking agent, no iodine, no bleaching. Our salt clumps in a damp kitchen, which is the correct behaviour of salt and not a defect.

III

### The clay is the plant

There is no machinery here. The whole works is shaped earth, and a bad winter of repairs costs more days than the harvest itself.

## What comes off the marsh

Three grades and a weed. Prices are at the hut; post is at cost and slow.

1. Coarse, grey Gros sel Raked from the floor 1 kg, 5 kg€ 4.20 / kg
2. Coarse, grey Gros sel Raked from the floor 25 kg sack€ 2.90 / kg
3. Fine, white Fleur de sel Skimmed from the surface 125 g€ 9.50 / 125 g
4. Fine, white Fleur de sel Skimmed from the surface 250 g€ 17.00 / 250 g
5. Ground once Sel fin Gros sel, milled here 500 g€ 5.80 / 500 g
6. Pickled Salicorne Grown on the bunds 180 g jar€ 6.40
7. Coarse, unsorted Bath salt Pan sweepings, clean 2 kg€ 5.00
8. Any grade Restaurant Direct, by arrangement 25 kg +On application

> You cannot hurry it and you cannot store the weather. Everything else about this job is repairing clay.

> Loïc Guéhenneuc, paludier

## One year

Last year’s, which was an average one: twenty-five point nine tonnes.

1. January Clay repair Bunds rebuilt by hand—
2. February Clay repair Channels cleared—
3. March Filling First water on a spring tide—
4. April Concentration Brine walks the marsh—
5. May Concentration Pans brought up to strength—
6. June Harvest First raking if the weather holds 3.1 t
7. July Harvest The heaviest month, most years 9.4 t
8. August Harvest Fleur de sel every dry evening 8.8 t
9. September Harvest Last raking, then drying 4.6 t
10. October Storing Carried in and weighed—
11. November Flooding The marsh is put under water—
12. December Rest Nothing at all happens—

## Coming out to the pans

Where
  Route des Marais, 44350 Guérande. Park on the road, walk the path.
Walking
  The bunds are public and slippery. They are also somebody’s working floor.
Buying
  At the hut, June to October, and by post all year.
Weather
  A wet August is a bad year and there is nothing to be done about it.

Orders, restaurants, visits

## Walk the pans with a saunier

Route des Marais, 44350 Guérande. Two hours, flat, no shade, and it is called off without ceremony if it rains. From June to September nobody reads mail before dark, and in August nobody reads it at all — so book a date rather than write.