Recognition

Sentinelles Slow Food

A breed, a variety, a cheese that a handful of producers refused to let disappear.

A Slow Food Sentinel is a community of producers that has set itself the task of saving an endangered product: a local breed, an heirloom variety, a cheese, a charcuterie, a bread. It passes on production techniques, looks after the surrounding landscape, and promotes the product so that it once again finds buyers. The Slow Food Foundation supports them across the five continents.

This is not an official sign: the label guarantees nothing. The Sentinel denotes people and craftsmanship, often narrower than the appellation that shelters them — matured pélardon rather than all pélardon, ladle-moulded farmhouse camembert rather than all camembert.

14 listed products

Fruit & vegetables Cerise d'Itxassou “In the heart of the Pays basque, the village of Itxassou is blanketed in pink and white in spring… PDO Charcuterie Jambon du Kintoa A ham of the Basque mountains, Kintoa PDO is the black-and-white child of the Porc Pie Noir du Pays… PDO Meat Porc Kintoa The Pie Noir du Pays Basque has roamed freely in the oak forests of the French Pays Basque since the… AOCPDO Cheeses Cantal One of the oldest cheeses in France — a massive wheel born on the volcanic high plateaux of Auvergne… AOCPDO Cheeses Saint-Nectaire A volcanic tomme with aromas of undergrowth and hazelnut, born on the slopes of the massif du Sancy… AOCPDO Cheeses Salers Salers is only made when Salers cows graze the grass of the volcanoes — from April to November, in the… Dairy & eggs Gwell "To make Gwell, you need Gwell: a fermented milk passed down from farm to farm, like a sourdough… AOCPDO Cheeses Pélardon Pélardon: a Mediterranean gem scented with garrigue, a centuries-old Cévenol heritage. PDO Charcuterie Jambon Noir de Bigorre A minimum of twenty-four months of patience and mountains — jambon noir de Bigorre is the Pyrenean… PDO Meat Porc Noir de Bigorre A thousand-year-old Gascon breed rescued from extinction, the porc noir de Bigorre roams the oak and… AOCPDO Cheeses Camembert de Normandie The authentic Camembert, born of an encounter between an Orne farmwoman and a refractory priest at the… AOCPDO Cheeses Brousse du Rove A fresh goat's cheese steeped in centuries-old Provençal tradition, as white and velvety as a cloud… PGI Grains & pulses Farine de petit épeautre de Haute Provence A year after the grain, it was the milling itself that received its own geographical indication — a… PGI Grains & pulses Petit épeautre de Haute-Provence 10,000 years of history: einkorn, one of the earliest domesticated cereals, still endures on the high…