From the picking to the plate, the art of bringing nature to your mouth.
This article smells like the scents of Haute-Loire: Scots pine, hay and other scents of the undergrowth. A wild flora that expert alchemists have the art of transforming to bring all this nature to the mouth and extract all its virtues.

Meetings with knowledgeable local pickers…

From the top of her farm "La Reine des Prés", Marie-France reveals to us the reasons for choosing to settle in Boussoulet: "I mainly practice wild picking, we are incredibly lucky to have preserved nature in Haute-Loire. , essentially pasture land, very little cultivation and many pollinators, which ensures a very rich and quality flora. I pick from March to November within 50 km of my farm. When I pick, I am in total connection with the tree or the plant. There is a diversity of flora: meadowsweet, willowherb, wild thyme, pansy, bramble, hawthorn, rosehip, cittern, elderberry, nettle, beech, ash, Scots pine, blueberry, raspberry. With all these essences, I can concoct up to 37 herbal teas”.

Notre coup de cœur:

La amazon herbal tea is a tasty blend of raspberry, yarrow, "a very feminine herbal tea to awaken the warrior in us".

Luc, previously based in Drôme, chose the preserved environment of Haute-Loire to launch his activity in Vorey-sur-Arzon around wild picking and processing into jams, syrups, nectars. “In my project La Voreysienne, I needed a clear contact with the living. I practice picking berries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, elderberries. For herbal teas, less than 20 km from my home, I pick wild thyme, bramble, nettle… I consider myself a farmer in the sense that I take care of the country. Even wild brambles, I prune them and thus maintain my environment”.

Our favourite: Rosehip Nectar

"I like to take the time and do things from the heart, for each product, I cook 3 times to keep the flavor of the fruit".

… and great botanical enthusiasts

But where is Charlie ?
At the edge of the undergrowth, along paths, on the edge of a meadow to look for, scrutinize flowers that are sometimes forgotten or misunderstood. When he takes us to discover wild plants, we take the time to observe and identify the species with him and also understand this living world. Charlie has a knack for making his truant picking poetic: the salad of young shoots of purslane, dandelion, lamb's quarters decorated with navels of Venus, it's just divine!

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The taste of the wild

195 road of the chabanade
Besse
43130 Solignac-sous-Roche
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And for the herbarium in a giant version, you have to walk to the Mazet-Saint-Voy botanical garden where a vegetation of the mountain level is spread over 2 hectares with more than 400 plants to discover.

They distill and transform plants into delicious elixirs

A rich wild flora which some will seek the quintessence, to extract the often beneficial essential properties.

La Helpac distillery in Saint-Hilaire take advantage of the richness of the preserved flora of the Natural Park Livradois to select buds and young shoots in order to make its macerates – mothers in gemmotherapy. “The buds are carefully selected and our pickers take the necessary precautions not to damage the tree”. Our local star buds: blackcurrant, hawthorn, rosehip, hazel, Scots pine, silver fir.

Our advice: visit the distillery

Visit the distillery and participate in discovery workshops in cosmetics, gemmotherapy, aromatherapy. When Ulrich Rampp arrives from Bavaria by bike and discovers a small wild valley nestled between volcanic domes near Saint-Pierre-Eynac, he decides to set up the laboratory there. Biofloral to make “Bach Flowers” ​​floral elixirs that harmonize our emotions. And out of 38 bach flowers, there are no less than 35 flowers growing in this valley. How to stay zen!

Because we like to make a lot of it on the plateaus of Mézenc

Hay is a star on the plateaus of Mézenc. The cittern that perfumes the hay meadows gives a typical aniseed taste that cows love when the hay is dry. Some have had the good idea to slip it into their recipes.

Hay ice cream is the sweet spot of the editorial staff. To taste it is to adopt it! A surprising little taste, subtle and fresh on the palate, nicely harmonized by Cyrille Bernard, Sweets from Lignon, ice cream maker in Chambon-sur-Lignon.

For breakfast sandwiches, we found you a hay butter from Tence, which won the Fermier d'Or medal. Butter made from the milk cream of Jersey cows and this milk has the particularity of producing more digestible fat molecules and once churned, of absorbing the smells and taste of the hay. This butter with floral notes goes well with salmon toast or grilled meat. And it's Vach'Mont-bio !

> On sale on the stairs from Tence, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, Yssingeaux, Dunières and online.

And it is from their processing workshop in Fay-sur-Lignon that Brigitte and Jean-François du Field of Marmots brought up to date a recipe for hay liqueur handed down by the elders.

Nature in the mouth thanks to Philippe Brun at the Haut-Allier restaurant

At the Le Haut-Allier hotel-restaurant, starred chef Philippe Brun has been putting the wild at the heart of his cuisine for 25 years. A knowledge that he passed on to his son Clément. A picker collects over the year the substantial marrow offered by Mother Nature in the heart of the Gorges de l'Allier where the restaurant nestles.

For example ? The fragrant woodruff nicknamed the vanilla of the Middle Ages. Once dried, it gives off an incredible smell of mountain hay, honey and island spices that this family of enthusiasts likes to incorporate into both sweet and savory dishes.

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Open. Closes at 21:00 p.m.

Haut-Allier

Pont-d'Alleyras
43580 Alleyras
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