A Taste of Land in Urban Paris | EUROtoday

Caroline Mills visited the Salon International de l’Agriculture, the biggest annual celebration of meals and farming in France…

Meet Oupette. She, a Limousin cow, was chosen because the mascot for this 12 months’s worldwide exhibition of agriculture, held annually in Paris-Porte de Versailles. It’s a festive jamboree of all that is fabulous (and, in politics, probably not so nice) about French meals, farming and related industries equivalent to horticulture, viniculture, arboriculture and extra. It brings collectively all the French wine trade, beer, cider, fruit growers, cheesemakers and butchers, livestock and arable farmers, sector representatives and a showcase of the nationwide forests and tourism organizations like Bienvenue à la Ferme.

There’s a critical facet to the occasion: it is an opportunity for farmers to return collectively to debate the politics of the day and the way it impacts them personally, in addition to the trade as a complete. Discontent has been demonstrated prior to now, relying on how city or rural a present president is perceived to be.
When I visited 16 years in the past, I snapped a fuzzy picture of then President Nicolas Sarkozy. There was little love misplaced between him and farmers on the time, and he famously had an altercation with a customer on the present.

It has change into conventional for the incumbent president to attend this 12 months, Emmanuel Macron was there. Other ministries additionally present up, with various levels of recognition. I observed a press pack awaiting the arrival of some dignitary or different, so, I thrust my digital camera into the scrum: it turned out to be the (now former) Prime Minister François Bayrou, there to fulfill and greet and take the occasional selfie with these confidant sufficient to place themselves ahead for an image.

Business and politics apart, the occasion, which is open to the general public, attracts upwards of 600,000 guests, such is its reputation. Spending a day or two there’s like taking a whistle-stop tour of France, with out stepping foot outdoors the Porte de Versailles exhibition heart. The indoor present is giant in scale, overlaying 9 pavilions. Greeting guests arriving on the central atrium was an enormous wellington boot and the sound of Alpine cowbells and clucking chickens pumped out into the Parisian surroundings of skyscrapers, trams and folks piling out of the Metro. The noises had an immediately soothing impact.

HARVEST HIGHLIGHTS

Each pavilion hosts completely different sectors of the agricultural trade. First, I visited the one devoted to crops, vegetation and, on a home scale, kitchen gardens. Here, Interfel, a cooperative selling French fruit and vegetable manufacturing, was handing out ‘floral’ bouquets of fruit, large buckets of elegantly ready kiwis, strawberries, kumquats, mushrooms and extra on sticks. Vergers Écoresponsables, a corporation representing fruit orchards devoted to eco-friendly manufacturing, was providing juicy slices of fruit.

An spectacular mannequin of the Eiffel Tower, or ‘La Tour FL (Fruits et Légumes), made totally from leeks, pineapples and different fruit and veg, drew crowds for a view; these, a minimum of, who weren’t collaborating in Wine Bingo on the Pavillon des Vins, with a spin-the-wheel quiz and speaker discussing the variants of wine from Corsica, Bordeaux and elsewhere.

On one other stand was a putting array of colourful bottles for every of the handfuls of alcoholic spirits made in France, together with petri dishes of botanicals to smell, and a hands-on quiz making the hyperlink between farming and alcohol. The French cider and brewing industries have been represented, too; not solely the well-known Breton and Normandy cider however that from Limousin, Pays Basque and Pays d’Othe too. I paused as a chef pulled a recent pear frangipane tart from an oven on the stand selling French sugar, chopping up a plateful of heat slices for passers-by to grasp, in edible phrases, the hyperlink between this and the sugar beet plant. Next door, the cereals trade baked loaves of bread, made with 100% French wheat, and a huge, gleaming mix harvester stood by for guests to sit down within the cab on excessive.

In a separate pavilion, authorities businesses and farming organizations showcased fishing, forests, the argument for transitioning to extra environmentally pleasant strategies of farming and the newest tech, whereas schools and universities specializing in agricultural programs attracted younger adults considering a profession on the land.

So nice is the need to advertise regional French produce, two pavilions are wanted to showcase the 13 areas of mainland France and Corsica. It’s like one monumental French market, wandering from Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes to Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Pays de la Loire to Bretagne. Steaming pans of truffade are on supply in Cantal; in Île-de-France, recent croissants are baked in full view; Grand-Est gives champagne by the glass (or bottle) and Kougelhopf, whereas the Drôme serves gigantic slabs of recent nougat.

There are many regional eating places, too, serving up specifically ready present menus. Yes, you possibly can seize a cornet of ham or a crepe for a fast gourmand, however these eating places are well-liked for a civilized sit-down meal with a bottle of wine. The noisiest pavilion was that showcasing meals and farming on the world stage, with gastronomic journeys to Italy, Switzerland, China and varied international locations in Africa. French abroad territories created a carnival environment with neon-signed cocktail bars, Polynesian dancing and numerous stalls promoting rum from, amongst others, Martinique, French Polynesia and Guadaloupe. There was, certainly, a number of rum! But by far the most well-liked and the biggest – pavilion is dedicated to French livestock, the place Oupette, together with her calf snuggled within the straw beside her, resided for the occasion. Pigs with their piglets, rams which can be how does one put it politely? – well-endowed (extra on that later), goats, and beef and dairy cattle are all showcased right here. It’s an opportunity to stand up shut and see simply how monumental prize bulls are, and the way furry playful piglets could be.

ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL

The animals are displayed by breed – and alongside well-known ones, equivalent to Limousin, Charolais, and, within the dairy sector, Montbéliarde, are lesser-known breeds, some on the uncommon breeds checklist and probably at risk of extinction: cattle just like the Gasconne des Pyrénées and Ferrandaise from Puy-de-Dôme, the Tarantaise from the Vallée de la Tarantaise in Savoie, and the Villard de Lans, named after the tiny ski resort within the Vercors.

Likewise, there are the Mouton d’Ouessant, a standard Breton sheep breed, Le Noir de Bigorre pigs from the Pyrenees, and the attractive spotty Porc de Bayeux from Calvados. It’s like being transported to the mountain meadows of the Pyrenees, or the orchards of Normandy. The significance of plot to plate is apparent.

Alongside the cattle are regional societies selling – with the assistance of free tastings – the meat of, for instance, Aubrac and Salers cattle, or cheese from Savoie, Normandy, and, my new favourite, Le Lozère from Fromagers de Lozère.

Visitors may watch and find out about chickens as bedraggled chicks hatched from eggshells, naturally exhausted from the ordeal earlier than they’re positioned below a heatlamp for heat and change into fluffy bundles. Comb-hatted gents – representing the village of Loué, in Sarthe, which is known for its poultry manufacturing – supplied explanations to enthralled onlookers in regards to the lifetime of a hen.

BEST IN SHOW

But the livestock are usually not on present purely for customer leisure. There’s the intense enterprise of the Concours Générale, the General Agricultural Competition. First held in 1864, the competitors acknowledges and rewards France’s finest regional merchandise and breeding animals.

There are competitors classes for native produce – dairy merchandise, particularly and wine and to showcase French livestock breeding packages. Hence the well-endowed rams, and bulls, too: for a livestock farmer to win first prize on the Paris present is an enormous deal and may add considerably to the revenue of a farm.

The animals are judged by breed within the varied showrings (there are additionally competitions for cats, canines and horses in separate pavilions), with livestock judged on how effectively it corresponds to the standard traits of the breed.

I watched on as Rouge Flammande dairy cows have been judged – a rosette hanging across the neck of the present champion as all the farming household stood proudly beside their prize cow.

And that was what was most evident all through the present, significantly inside the livestock pavilion: the significance of household and the following technology of farmers. Children helped mother and father keenly to steer ‘their’ cow to the ring; they helped on the milking parlor – the place cows have been on view so everybody may watch the method; they usually stood by, able to shovel the cowpats. With younger farmers desperate to get entangled, the way forward for farming in France seems to be in protected palms.

TRAVEL ESSENTIALS

The Salon International de l’Agriculture is held at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. The subsequent occasion can be held from February 21 to March 1, 2026. Tickets could also be bought upfront or on the gate.

www.salon-agriculture.com

GETTING THERE

Metro Porte de Versailles (line 12) is straight reverse the doorway to the exhibition website, with simple connections to Gare du Nord for Eurostar and Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Alternatively, Tramway Line T3a and Line 2 at Porte de Versailles present handy entry.

From France Today Magazine

Lead picture credit score: Photo: Caroline Mills