Curtain on the 36e Award-winning Parthenay fair which closed on Wednesday December 4, 2024 at noon the day after the trophy presentations to breeders. Very fair market prices, almost complete sale of the herd of 387 cattle presented, in the gloomy context for agriculture where breeders are still doing well, the organizers of the Parthenaisian Association for the organization of competitions slaughter animals (Apocab) had every reason to be happy in this year when the Limousin breed was in the spotlight… while waiting for the Parthenaise who will play at home in 2025, in the spotlight of the national butchery animal competition in Parthenay.
“Especially because she is tender everywhere”
But why on earth, precisely, do butchers look so fondly at the Parthenaise, the emblematic cattle breed of Gâtine?
“With the parthenaise, it’s already Christmas, smiles Christophe Mahé, vice-president of the Côtes-d’Armor butchers’ union. Artisan butchers love parthenaise for Christmas holidays for its large yield and above all because it is tender everywhere. »
And this butcher established in Lanvollon (Côtes-d'Armor) wanted to share this very Gâtinaise tenderness. He came to this award-winning Fair accompanied by nine students in their fourth year of butchery training, as they arrived at their second year of professional certification at the Costa Rican apprentice training center (CFA) in Ploufragan. Around their teacher Nathalie Lucas, they were even able to appear among the jury of this 36e edition, just to get your hands on the bovine selection criteria.
The cream of the CFA
A live buyer with twenty-five employees, this Breton, who only had eyes for the Parthenaise, was won over. “It was a first here, but we will come back,” he promised.
Featured in the large ring of the Parthenay livestock market before the prize giving to breeders, the apprentice butchers from the CFA of Niort savored the moment on Tuesday evening.
© (Photo NR)
During this time, people were cutting, they were cutting, they were larding, they were showing, they were tying up under an adjacent arbor where the competition for the best apprentice butcher in Deux-Sèvres was being held for the fourth time. The Niort CFA had selected the crème de la crème among its twenty-four learners, with its five best apprentice butchers gathered around David Russeil, their trainer, all at work in front of the public.
The Mauléonnais Mathéo Cailleau, winner two years ago and who appeared in the national final, was even part of the jury. The winner of the day, Quentin Bouvier, apprentice at La Belle Rouge in Périgné, will defend the department in the regional final in Barbezieux (Charente), on February 3, 2025. History does not yet tell if, on that day, his knife will slip in a tender fillet of Parthenaise as in a good pat of Breton butter.
