(Paris) Two centuries ago, French farmers revolutionized modern mushroom cultivation by settling in the maze of underground limestone quarries in Paris. But their technique is today in danger, for lack of buyers.
With a paradox: the demand is stronger than ever for these white mushrooms cultivated traditionally, as well as for their brown cousins known to be tastier.
“The question is not to find customers, I sell everything I can produce,” explains Shoua-moua Vang, the boss of the champion Les Alouettes in Carrières-sur-Seine, a stone’s throw from the very lively district of Paris. Defense Affairs, west of the capital.
Mr. Vang runs one of the largest mushroom cellars in the Paris region, which spans a hectare and a half of tunnels in the bowels of a hill overlooking the Seine River.
His clients include Michelin-starred chefs as well as supermarket chains and local markets, although he himself describes his products as “expensive”, at 3.20 euros per kilo at wholesale prices.
But during a recent AFP visit, wet crates filled with hundreds of kilograms of mushrooms were waiting to be sent to the trash. The reason ? Little hands were missing to harvest them all.
Only five of its eleven employees were in place, the others having taken sick leave. The boss doubts that they will all come back.
“People today do not want to work all day in the dark like vampires”, he laments, estimating that his production of the day would reach at best 1.5 tons, instead of 2.5 or even 3. usual tons.
Shoua-moua Vang is one of the five producers still cultivating “button mushrooms” in the traditional way. By comparison, they were 250 at the end of the 19th century.
They had discovered that Agaricus bisporus, a fungus made popular by the Sun King Louis XIV, could grow all year round if placed in a manure substrate and at depth, where temperatures and humidity can be controlled, and where darkness promotes their growth.
The earthy and stony atmosphere additionally gives the mushrooms a little nutty, almost mineral taste, while preventing them from being saturated with water.
Even the gruesome catacombs of Paris, converted into a popular tourist attraction, were once covered in mushrooms.
Renaissance?
Galloping urbanization and the construction of the Parisian metro in particular pushed farmers outside the capital in the early 1900s. In 1970, around fifty of them were still in the quarries of the Parisian suburbs, often heirs. from the same family.
But the arrival of cheaper imports from the Netherlands, Poland and then China, where production takes place in industrial sheds and peat replaces limestone to increase yield, has dealt the final blow to many. ‘between them.
“Many had no one to succeed them when they retire,” explains Muriel Le Loarer, who strives to revive the tradition of the Paris mushroom through Safer d’Ile-de-France, a rural development agency.
Shoua-moua Vang, for example, resumed in September 2020 a career in which he had worked for eleven years, the children of the previous owner not wishing to follow in his footsteps.
“We are promoting the sector, helping to find financial aid and working with local authorities to reopen careers”, describes Mme The Loarer, highlighting the growing interest in short circuit production.
For now, however, button mushrooms only represent a fraction of the 90,000 tonnes produced in France each year, according to figures from the Rungis wholesale market, south of the capital.
And it is too late to create a label “mushroom of Paris” to protect this production, this term being used massively for decades, according to the authorities.
Parisian growers are therefore faced with a marketing challenge. They must strive to make customers understand the value of their approach, when it is obvious.
“Here our mushrooms grow naturally, I do not stimulate them by spraying them with water because it soaks them up with water”, summarizes Mr. Vang. “The mushrooms in the giant sheds are grown by computer. ”