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Auvergne
Châtaigne de Mourjou
‘Mourjou, Châtaigneraie cantalienne’: the Cantal village that turned its bread tree into a rediscovered art of living.
Fruit from Auvergne.
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Auvergne
‘Mourjou, Châtaigneraie cantalienne’: the Cantal village that turned its bread tree into a rediscovered art of living.
Fruit from Auvergne.
AI-generated illustration
Together with rye, the chestnut once formed one of the staples of the diet in the Châtaigneraie cantalienne. Dubbed ‘poor man’s bread’, it sustained generations of peasant families and their animals, particularly pigs. In Mourjou, a village that numbered 1,200 inhabitants in 1890 — its population peak —, the chestnut tree was nicknamed the ‘bread tree’: a fruit that keeps well, can be eaten until April and helped stave off famine. During the 1914 war, entire railway wagons of chestnuts were sent from Cantal to the front for the soldiers. Farmers also sold them in nearby towns — Aurillac, Figeac, Decazeville —, without truly making a living from them: consumption remained above all local.
Over the following decades, cultivation, marketing and production lost ground to modern agriculture and cattle farming. Stricken by diseases — canker, then ink disease —, exploited by the tannin industry, and hit by the rural exodus, the chestnut groves gradually withered away. The final blow came in the 1950s with the arrival of cars, bulldozers and tractors: agriculture and food models shifted, and the chestnut fell into disuse.
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Over the past few decades, the ‘castanhaires’ — literally the ‘chestnutters’, those who work the chestnut tree and its fruit — have rediscovered their symbolic tree: they plant, graft, prune and tend the chestnut trees, bringing chestnuts back into favour in cooking, baking, preserves and drinks. Since 2017, a recovery plan spearheaded by the Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and the Communauté de communes de la Châtaigneraie cantalienne has aimed to plant 7,000 trees in three years; more than half the target has been reached, with 3,150 plantings and 570 rehabilitated trees, supported by €101,600 in public aid. In Mourjou, local tradition dictates that a young chestnut tree is presented to children born in the year preceding the fair, so that they are identified as inhabitants of the Châtaigneraie.
At the heart of this renewal, the Foire de la Châtaigne de Mourjou has been held since 1990, bringing together each year over 80 exhibitors from across all of France’s chestnut-growing regions. The Confrérie du Pélou holds its annual chapter there: founded in 1994, twin sister of the Confrérie de la Châtaigne d'Ardèche, it takes its name from the Occitan word ‘pélou’, which refers to the chestnut burr. In late 2018, the area joined the national network of ‘Sites Remarquables du Goût’ under the title ‘Mourjou, Châtaigneraie cantalienne’.
Appearance
Spiky burr bristling with spines, smooth and glossy reddish-brown shell, ovoid fruit slightly flattened on one side
Aroma
Sweet and woody, with notes of roasted chestnut
Taste
Delicately sweet, reminiscent of chestnut and a hint of almond, less pronounced than the marron
Texture
Firm when raw, melting and creamy once cooked
The Châtaigneraie cantalienne has some twenty local varieties of chestnut, the most widespread of which are Jan Fau, Savoia (Savoie), Paqueta (Paquette), Verdala (Verdale), Tomiva (Toumive) and Marona (la Marronne).
gathered by hand in the orchards as soon as the burrs fall in October and November
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Mourjou chestnuts are eaten roasted, boiled (‘tétounadas’), dried then rehydrated (‘auriols’), as jam, in charcuterie, in pastries, as flour, in pasta and in bread. Local liqueur-makers use them to produce drinks that have become specialities of the Châtaigneraie: crème de châtaigne, blueberry-chestnut liqueur (le Tonton), apple-chestnut liqueur (le Birlou), and a gentian-chestnut apéritif (le Volcan). Chestnut jam and crème de châtaigne accompany crêpes, tartines and terroir cheeses; the flour is used in artisan pasta and speciality breads served with Cantal cheeses. Based in Marcolès, Michelin-starred chef Renaud Darmanin has made it the signature of his restaurant, featured even in a green cabbage with sumac and vanilla sweet potato, enhanced with chestnut shavings and marrons glacés. A traditional recipe of the fair: fouace made with chestnut flour, a crown-shaped brioche glazed with egg yolk.
No official quality sign (PDO (AOP), AOC, PGI (IGP), TSG (STG) or Label Rouge) protects the Châtaigne de Mourjou. At the end of 2018, the area joined the ‘Site Remarquable du Goût’ network (a label created in 1995 by the Ministries of Culture, Tourism, the Environment and Agriculture) under the title ‘Mourjou, Châtaigneraie cantalienne’ — recognition of a tourism and heritage sector, not an INAO quality sign.
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