Europe 1
3:22 p.m., November 23, 2024
La Table des Bons vivants having moored in Saint-Quai-Portrieux, this is the opportunity to take a detour into the lands of Côtes d'Armor, to meet two products that are the pride of the Bretons: Paimpol coconut and the gwell.
Cultivated in 85 communes in the Côtes d'Armor department including the Trégor coast and the north of the Guingamp region, Paimpol coconut is harvested each year from June and the season ends in October. The precious beans are sold semi-dry on market stalls, also in supermarkets, and the Bretons never miss the appointment. It is customary to buy them in large quantities and freeze them at home to enjoy them all year round, as the legume tolerates freezing very well.
Cécile Briand, market gardener and president of the bean section of the Maraîchers d'Armor cooperative, has also set up a distribution of their directly frozen products in stores for several years to continue selling them all winter.
Isabelle Allain, breeder in Ploubezre at the Wern farm, is also committed to quality by highlighting a local breed which had almost disappeared in the 1980s: the Froment du Léon. The latter produces a milk rich in fat and beta-carotene, which gives a sunny yellow color to their raw milk butter. Their farm's other flagship product is gwell, a fermented milk that resembles a stringy, tangy white cheese.
Gwell is a brand registered by Breton farmers themselves to promote know-how passed down from farm to farm: the ferments are indigenous yeasts, that is to say specific to each farm, so that the tastes differ subtly depending on the farm you buy it from. To perpetuate this confidential and quality product, the few breeders who manufacture it have come together to submit a file to the INAO, wishing wholeheartedly that it obtains an AOP to protect their know-how.
