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Picardy
On the wet sand of the Baie de Somme, it is known as the "sauterelle" — brown shrimp, caught with push nets for generations, remains Fort-Mahon-Plage's most faithful catch.
Seafood from Picardy.
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The Baie de Somme is the historical benchmark for brown shrimp fishing in France, ahead of the Normandy and Brittany coasts, the Baie du Mont-Saint-Michel, the Channel estuaries, and the Pertuis Charentais. Here, people do not say brown shrimp but "sauterelle": the name has spanned generations of shore fishers who, in the North as in Picardy, pushed their nets along the beach to supplement the family's daily fare — a pursuit long sustained by women and the elderly.
On a commercial scale, the bay was long fished from the sauterellier, an open boat originating in Saint-Valery-sur-Somme and named after the "sauterelle" it set out to catch. The boat has disappeared in its original form, replaced by small flat-bottomed trawlers. These are the vessels seen today at Le Hourdel, where trawlers are largely dedicated to catching brown shrimp, escorted as the trawl is hauled in by flocks of seagulls arriving to profit from the sorting. In the fine season, the "sauterelliers" — the fishers on foot, this time — repeat the very same motion on the foreshore, around Cap Hornu and Saint-Valery-sur-Somme.
Fort-Mahon-Plage has its own way of keeping this memory alive: the Confrérie de la Crevette Grise, an association registered in April 2017, whose statutory purpose is to promote the resort through its speciality, to represent the values and traditions of the Picardy coast, and to celebrate the ancestral coastal heritage of fishing on foot. It organises introductory fishing-on-foot sessions for children, catalogues the simplest brown shrimp recipes, and awards diplomas to restaurateurs who invent new ones — perpetuating in its own way a craft that the bay has always practised.
Appearance
Alive, its grey-brown shell provides perfect camouflage on the sand; on cooking, it turns pink and its tail curls.
Aroma
A clean, iodised scent, the sign of successful cooking — and of genuine freshness.
Taste
A distinctive, intense, and slightly sweet flavour, more delicate than that of large tropical prawns.
Texture
Firm flesh, requiring patience to peel: it takes roughly 3 kg of whole shrimp to yield 1 kg of meat.
every 20 to 30 pushes, the net is raised and sorted; shrimp that are too small are returned immediately to the water.
the shrimp are plunged alive on the very same day into heavily salted boiling water, for just a few minutes.
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Brown shrimp is above all enjoyed simply: plain or with mayonnaise as an aperitif, it is a mainstay of any seafood platter. Regulars on the Picardy coast also enjoy it in tomate-crevettes, a speciality from neighbouring Belgium, in melt-in-the-mouth croquettes, or in a garlic and rosemary salad. In Fort-Mahon-Plage, the Confrérie de la Crevette Grise also promotes "pure brown shrimp" soups and aperitif rillettes prepared by the Au Coin Goûteux cannery in Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, the only manufacturer of these products in France according to the association — as well as shrimp freshly caught and cooked by the fishmonger Les Fils de la Mer in Le Crotoy.
Brotherhood
Artisanal manufacturer
Artisan
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