…so what is a terroir, then?

The word terroir is an untranslatable French word that evokes the productive relationship between man and nature that plays to the natural strengths of a region. Originally applied to wines, today terroir is extended to describe a range of foods that are like a gastronomic fingerprint, as much a part of the area as the wind that stirs the pastures. It is the glue that once bound successive generations to their respective corners of France.

Today this empathy for the land still exists but has taken a different form, since postwar peasants pooled their resources, forming or reviving producer co-operatives and raising generations of technically-minded food producers.

Literally thousands of producer co-operatives developed integrated processing facilities, ensuring that food production could remain within the locality, ensuring employment and continuity. The landscape goes a long way towards defining both the activities that thrive in an area and the constraints it imposes on those who live there.

Like many other terroirs, geology defines the Isigny terroir, located at a point where there is a breach in the coastline, which plays a vital part in the local microclimate. A deep alluvial inlet, it is an area capable of supporting an enormous diversity of life both in its tidal mudflats and on its shores.

As well as year-round grazing, the saltmarsh pastures benefit from onshore breezes that maintain high levels of minerals such as iodine in the grass. The diversity of the flora in the meadows mean that the summer milk from cows grazing in them gives a strong yellow hue from betacarotene, the pigment of a buttercup’s yellow petals.

Although the word ‘terroir‘ is rooted in ‘la terre’ or the earth, a terroir can extend to inshore fisheries on the continental shelf and can embrace fish or seafood, particularly shellfish such as oysters. The bay of Veys is home to huge shellfish populations, which locals have been gathering for centuries.

While Isigny is famous for its butter and cream, there is an ongoing application to get AOC status for oysters from the Veys bay. The sheltered estuary produces particularly fleshy oysters, referred to locally as ‘l’huître speciale d’Isigny’. It should come as no surprise that the local custom for preparing oysters is to either cook them with cream or serve them raw with butter.

Because they taste very good that way… simple.