A church in France used ham to restore its organ

Struggling to raise funds to restore the church’s ancient organ, a priest from St.-Flour, a small town in central France, came up with a creative solution. He turned one of the bell towers into a curing workshop where farmers could hang their hams to dry.

Almost two years after being blessed by a local bishopPork thighs sway in the dry air of the cathedral’s north tower, bringing in much-needed funds and delighting barbecue lovers. Then an inspector from the organization that oversees France’s architectural heritage got involved.

After noticing grease stains on the bell tower floor as well as other violations, the inspector ordered the ham taken down. According to church officials, he said they were a fire hazard. When the church refused to remove the ham, the dispute escalated all the way to the country’s Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati.

The fight over St.-Flour ham has been widely derided as an example of how overzealous officials can stifle local innovation initiatives. It also touches on a larger issue that historic churches across France are grappling with as they face costly reparations: Who will pay to maintain their vast religious heritage? country?

After the French Revolution, church assets were confiscated by the state and they eventually became responsible for overseeing most of them. But the central government and local governments are finding it difficult to fund the maintenance of mosques and churches in the country.

The restoration of the devastated Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris a terrible fire in 2019, funded by approximately $900 million in donations. But religious buildings in the rest of the country were largely left to fend for themselves.

According to the Ministry of Culture, across France, there are an estimated 15,000 religious buildings out of 45,000 classified as historical monuments. The ministry said more than 2,300 of them were in poor condition and 363 were considered endangered.

“The situation is alarming,” said Hadrien Lacoste, vice president of the Religious Heritage Observatory, an independent nonprofit group. “There is a decline in religious practice, and there is a demographic decline in rural areas,” he added.

Even though decline in church attendanceTowns like St.-Flour, with a population of about 6,400, see their cathedrals and churches as defining elements of their identity and feel the need to maintain them.

Mathieu Lours, a French historian specializing in religious architecture, said: “We realize that each of our churches is a miniature Notre Dame, a village without a church is like Like Paris without Notre Dame Cathedral.

In France – as is the case elsewhere in Europe – churches are decaying frequently change into a gym, restaurant, hotel or home.

In St.-Flour, a renaissance church next to the cathedral was consecrated and is now a market and cultural site.

Maintaining the church itself was considered an essential, if expensive, endeavor for the town. St.-Flour is located in the heart of Cantal, a region of France known for its lush hilly landscape and local cheese. Seen from a distance, the church is located atop a towering rock outcrop that covers the town like a fortress.

“Do you know the saying, all roads lead to Rome?” said Patrice Boulard, the meat producer responsible for climbing the tower’s 145 steps to hang the hams there. “Oh, here in St.-Flour, all roads lead to church.”

The idea of ​​a healing workshop in the bell tower was the brainchild of Gilles Boyer, then rector of the cathedral, after funds were allegedly provided by the authorities to repair the cathedral’s 19th-century choir. Worship never materialized.

A food lover who once managed a restaurant in Paris, Mr. Boyer set up beehives on an unused church terrace to produce honey for sale. The bell tower is also an unused space. He wondered why not use it to hang ham, a regional specialty?

“It all started as a joke,” he said, “but it wasn’t that stupid after all.”

Altitude, a local pork production cooperative of about 40 pig farmers, loved the idea, partly because of the marketing potential, but also because of what they believe is the exceptional air quality and bales in the tower to cure the ham.

“It creates a link between business and heritage, between a product and Its terror,” said Thierry Bousseau, the company’s communications director.

The project was approved by state and church authorities, and the first batch of hams were sold in markets, in churches and online in the spring of 2022, for about $150 each, more than approx. $50 less than the price of an average local artisan ham. will take. Profits, after Altitude covers costs, will be given to the church.

Mr. Bousseau said a total of about 300 hams were sold and more than $12,000 was spent restoring the body part.

The project is called “Florus Solatium”, in memory of the town’s founder, a fifth-century saint named Florus, whose relics are kept in the church. According to legendThe saint miraculously escaped the robbers when he reached the top of the cliff, where the people welcomed him with traditional local ham. “Quid solatium!” He is said to have cried out. “What a comfort!”

Most of the ham maturation takes place in the Altitude warehouses in a nearby town. But Mr. Boyer, the former headmaster, is convinced that their three months attached to the tower’s wooden beams, exposed to the wind and the vibrations of the bells, is what gives the meat its special quality.

Aurélien Gransagne, chef at the restaurant, said: “Most hams are dried in places where the humidity is always the same, the ventilation is always the same.” Serge Vieira Restauranta nearby Michelin-starred restaurant, referring to the humidity in the air. In the bell tower, he added, “you have fluctuations and that’s what makes a product special.”

The thick, rosy meat, he says, is as good as the best Italian prosciutto or Spanish jamón. Mr. Gransagne’s restaurant offers diners rose-shaped slices of meat along with other appetizers – and a bit of its origin story.

With the success of the tower-cured hams, Jean-Paul Rolland, who takes over as principal from Mr. Boyer in 2022, said he decided to put his foot down when the heritage architect announced his project. dangerous sentence.

“The building is reserved for religious practice, so the government has no right to tell us what we can do or not,” he said.

The grease stains probably appeared on the aged wooden floor long before the hams were brought up, he said.

“It’s like a landlord telling a tenant that he’s not allowed to change the position of a painting in the living room,” Mr. Rolland added.

He made some minor changes, like carpeting the floors of the towers and barring access to visitors. But the hams will continue to hang, he said.

In October, Ms. Dati, the culture minister, announced the decision: The hams would be kept, on condition that a “detailed study” would examine “the administrative, material and and organization” so that the hams are safely matured, her office said in an email. That process is still continuing.

Whatever the final decision, hams have become something of a value in a country that values ​​the delicacies of small producers as much as the country’s religious heritage. St.-Flour made national headlines and ham sales skyrocketed. Altitude said the Élysée Palace in Paris places regular orders for ham every three months and served ham slices at its buffet in June. (It’s unclear whether President Emmanuel Macron will try some no and the Elysée Palace did not respond to a request for comment.)

However, not everyone in St.-Flour is happy with the idea of ​​turning the church into a market.

“There were bees, now there are hams. What’s next, cheese?” asked Roger Merle, 68, owner of a clothing store in town.