Martine Urvoy will never forget July 3, 1995, the night she was told her husband, Francois, a Breton seaweed fisherman, had been lost at sea. For five terrible hours she had no news of his fate. Finally at daybreak, Francois was found clinging to a rock in the treacherous waters off Brittany’s northern coast.
But as the 46-year-old Breton “goemonier” — the term means seaweed gatherer — says himself many of his former colleagues have not been so lucky.
“This is a very dangerous job. Seaweed needs rocks and strong currents to grow properly. In other words you only find it in the most treacherous waters.
“Every year three or four guys sink with their boats and the rescuers don’t always find them again,” the taciturn, weather-beaten fisherman said.
Goemoniers nearly always work alone on their small, specially equipped fishing boats. And even when all goes according to plan on a seaweed gathering trip — the harvesting season lasts from May to October — possible disaster is never far away.
Once anchored in the rocky and often decidedly choppy waters where the best seaweed beds are found, goemoniers like Urvoy use cranes attached to their boats to harvest their slimy, salty, green booty.
Large hook-like implements nicknamed “scoubidous” are lowered from the precariously bobbing vessels into the seaweed and are then made to spin slowly to rip great masses of the marine plants off from the seabed.
The huge, heavy balls of dripping vegetation are then hauled up to the surface, often causing the boat to tilt alarmingly, then dumped onto the slippery deck.
An average seaweed fishing trip lasts between 12 and 14 hours at the end of which a boat can be so laden down that its deck is almost below the water line.
Around 95% of the 50-60 000 tonnes of seaweed gathered every year in Breton waters is either turned into a gelatine-like additive for the processed food industry, used by cosmetics makers or employed as an agricultural fertiliser.
Rich in trace elements and minerals and with a high content of vitamin B12, the rest supplies the small but growing market for seaweed-based food and drinks.
The situation in the massive Asian seaweed market is almost exactly the reverse.
Asian countries, notably China and Japan, account for most of the estimated eight million tonnes of seaweed processed every year and nearly all of which is destined for human consumption.
Asian processors also use hardly any wild seaweed in their products, relying instead on cultivated plants.
For Christine Le Tennier, who runs a small company producing seaweed-based foods including pastas, pates and mustards in the Breton town of Rosporden, cultivation is something Brittany’s producers may have to consider if demand for products like hers keeps rising.
“At the moment we have enough seaweed from the goemoniers to keep up with our orders but at some point we may have to start looking for other sources,” she said.
“Seaweed used to be the food of the poor. A century ago it was what people ate when they couldn’t afford anything else,” said Le Tennier.
“Today things have totally changed. It’s now becoming increasingly popular with wealthy, fashionable people who are keen to try healthy new foods,” she added.
Even though a goemonier can generally sell as much seaweed as he can harvest, fewer and fewer people are deciding to take up the dangerous job.
“There are around 70 of us working at the moment, but the number is falling. Two guys retired last year and no-one has replaced them. There used to be a waiting list to become a goemonier but now the job is open to any takers,” Urvoy said.
He insists however cultivation would never work in Brittany.
“The weather’s not reliable enough here. One good storm and your entire crop of seaweed would be lost.”
Le Tennier supplies seaweed products to one of Brittany’s top restaurants, the Maisons de Bricourt in the small seaside town of Cancale, which this year was awarded three stars by the prestigious Michelin food guide.
She is also finding customers outside France, notably in Mexico and in a number of central European countries including the Czech Republic, attracted by high-quality, luxury products which carry a hint of the wild with their association with the Breton coast.
But she admits that in order to really develop, her industry needs to overcome some serious technical hurdles.
For example, Breton producers are still unable to make the flat, vacuum packed sheets of seaweed that are the backbone of a huge variety of Japanese style ‘sushi’ dishes, she said.
“We just don’t have the machines or the know how here,” she said.
“I have already been on several fact finding trips to Japan and I would be more than happy to set up a joint venture with a Japanese partner, after all they are the masters in this field.”
Other Breton producers have branched out even further in the seaweed-based food market.
Herve Seznec, who runs a cider-making factory and distillery in the city of Quimper, has developed two seaweed flavoured alcoholic drinks: a pastis marin that is a fresh take on the traditional French aniseed-based liquor and an aperitif called Algane d’Ocean.
For the uninitiated, Le Tennier suggests tucking into a plate of “sea beans” to discover the delights of seaweed.
These are in fact the stalks of a seaweed called Himanthalia elongata, which can be cooked in the same way as traditional French beans.
“Heat them in a pan either with a small amount of oil or steam them, then serve them hot with a pinch of salt and perhaps a few cooked shallots. They’re delicious,” she said.
As for the future of the industry, Urvoy is clearly concerned that the trade to which he has devoted 17 years of his life could end up as nothing more than a footnote in Brittany’s history books.
But at the same time he acknowledges he wouldn’t like his own son to follow in his footsteps.
“Every time I get ready to go out in the boat I get scared and I certainly wouldn’t like him to do what I do. But for me, I have this job in my blood. I can’t imagine doing anything else.” – AFP