Marais BlancPaludier / Guérande

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
Sea salt pans seen from directly above, a grid of shallow clay basins of pink brine
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 workMarch
  2. 02

    Run the adernes

    Brine walks the marsh by gravity through a chain of shallowing basins, taking about a fortnight to cross itApril
  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 holdsJune – 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 sinkEvenings
  5. 05

    Dry and store

    Mounded on the path for a week, then carried in. Nothing is washed, nothing is ground, nothing is addedSeptember
A long-handled wooden salt rake resting across a clay bund beside a shallow brine pan
The lousse. Five metres of wood and no metal anywhere on it.
A conical mound of freshly harvested white sea salt on a clay path
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.

A shallow wooden salt scoop worn smooth

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.

A small linen sack of coarse sea salt, open at the top

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.

A single weathered wooden bund stake with a squared head

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, greyGros selRaked from the floor1 kg, 5 kg€ 4.20 / kg
  2. Coarse, greyGros selRaked from the floor25 kg sack€ 2.90 / kg
  3. Fine, whiteFleur de selSkimmed from the surface125 g€ 9.50 / 125 g
  4. Fine, whiteFleur de selSkimmed from the surface250 g€ 17.00 / 250 g
  5. Ground onceSel finGros sel, milled here500 g€ 5.80 / 500 g
  6. PickledSalicorneGrown on the bunds180 g jar€ 6.40
  7. Coarse, unsortedBath saltPan sweepings, clean2 kg€ 5.00
  8. Any gradeRestaurantDirect, by arrangement25 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. JanuaryClay repairBunds rebuilt by hand—
  2. FebruaryClay repairChannels cleared—
  3. MarchFillingFirst water on a spring tide—
  4. AprilConcentrationBrine walks the marsh—
  5. MayConcentrationPans brought up to strength—
  6. JuneHarvestFirst raking if the weather holds3.1 t
  7. JulyHarvestThe heaviest month, most years9.4 t
  8. AugustHarvestFleur de sel every dry evening8.8 t
  9. SeptemberHarvestLast raking, then drying4.6 t
  10. OctoberStoringCarried in and weighed—
  11. NovemberFloodingThe marsh is put under water—
  12. DecemberRestNothing 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.