Definition: Pre-salt lamb

None of them have ever achieved the fame of those from Pauillac or the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel (Brittany) or the Bay of Somme (Picardy), even though the latter only produce small quantities. In a nutshell, within the "lamb family" we can distinguish between: lamb for slaughter, known as white lamb even though its meat is light pink, which is reared and fattened in sheepfolds; grass-fed lamb, which is reared outdoors, feeding first on its mother's milk and then on grass. Its flesh is more coloured than that of the previous type; milk-fed lamb, which, as its name suggests, feeds exclusively on its mother's milk, is light, weighing 7 to 10kg, given its age at slaughter: 1 to 2 months. Its flesh is white and has a mild flavour; finally, there is pre-salted lamb.

The place where it is fattened gives its meat an exceptional flavour, mainly due to the salty sea grasses that cover the meadows covered by the high tides and which the ewes feast on. "Salt marshes are the upper part of the tidal zone (foreshore or intertidal zone). They develop at the bottom of bays and estuaries, where fine sedimentation occurs, sheltered from swells and strong currents. The plants that occupy this space are adapted to the presence of salt water and are distributed according to a gradient of substrate salinity. When grazed, salt marshes consist of grassland largely dominated by Puccinellia, which is virtually the only plant capable of withstanding regular grazing."

These days, these salt marshes are fantastic biological factories that should be places not only for consumers who are supposedly concerned about sustainable agriculture as citizens, but also for added value for livestock farmers. But, as usual, under pressure from the cheapest of the cheap, the new monopolistic grocers, the French mainly consume sheep meat imported from New Zealand. Instead of constantly complaining, shedding crocodile tears over the disappearance of farmers from the Massif Central, and looking for problems where there are none, pointing out the contradictions in our fellow citizens' behaviour would undoubtedly make them realise that grass-fed livestock farming in difficult areas is the only solution. We find ourselves in the same situation as the textile industry in the 1980s. If nothing is done to ensure that these farmers' income is no longer solely dependent on European subsidies, and despite the eternal Poujadists who keep telling us that their taxes should mainly be used to fund the police and the military and that farmers should simply switch to growing strawberries above ground, it is imperative that a small amount of money be reinvested in the price of these products of high social and environmental quality.