A priest from St.-Flour, a small town in central France, came up with a creative solution after struggling to raise funds to restore the cathedral’s antique organ. He converted one of the bell towers into a curing workshop where farmers could hang their hams to dry.
For nearly two years after receiving the blessing of the local bishop, the pork legs have been swinging peacefully in the dry air of the cathedral’s north tower, raising much-needed funds and delighting pork lovers. Then an inspector from the agency that oversees France’s architectural heritage intervened.
After discovering oil stains and other violations on the bell tower floor, inspectors ordered the ham to be removed. According to cathedral officials, in a December 2023 report he said there was a fire risk. When the cathedral refused to remove the ham, the dispute escalated to Culture Minister Rachida Dati.
The fight over castle flour ham was widely derided as an example of how overzealous officials can quash innovative local initiatives. It also speaks to a larger problem with aging churches across France struggling as they face costly reparations. Who will pay for the maintenance of this country’s vast religious heritage?
After the French Revolution, church property was confiscated by the state, and eventually the state came to oversee most church property. But central government and local governments are struggling to raise funds to maintain the country’s cathedrals and churches.
About $900 million in donations was provided to restore Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was destroyed by a devastating fire in 2019. But religious buildings in the rest of the region are largely left to fend for themselves.
According to the Ministry of Culture, about 15,000 of the 45,000 religious buildings across France are classified as historical monuments. Of these, more than 2,300 are in poor condition and 363 are considered endangered, the health ministry said.
“The situation is alarming,” said Hadrien Lacoste, vice president of the independent non-profit Religious Heritage Observatory. He added: “Religious activity is decreasing and demographics in rural areas are also decreasing.”
Cities like St.-Flour, with a population of about 6,400, see a strong need to maintain cathedrals and churches as defining elements of their identity, despite declining church attendance.
“We realized that each of our churches is a little Notre Dame, and that a town without a church is like Paris without Notre Dame,” said Mathieu Lours, a French historian who specializes in religious architecture.
In France, as elsewhere in Europe, decaying churches are often converted into gyms, restaurants, hotels or homes.
In St.-Flour, the Renaissance church adjacent to the cathedral was consecrated and now serves as a market and cultural venue.
Maintaining the cathedral itself was considered a necessary, though expensive, city effort. St.-Flour is located in the heart of Cantal, a French region famous for its green hilly landscapes and local cheeses. From a distance, the cathedral atop a rocky outcrop towers over the town like a fortress.
“Do you know the proverb that all roads lead to Rome?” said Patrice Boulard, a meat producer responsible for climbing the tower’s 145 steps to hang the hams. “Here in Saint-Flour, all roads lead to the cathedral.”
The idea of a curing workshop in the bell tower was the idea of Gilles Boyer, then rector of the cathedral. This was after funding authorities were supposed to provide to repair the church’s 19th-century choir organ failed to materialize.
Mr. Boyer, a food enthusiast who once ran a restaurant in Paris, has already set up a beehive on the cathedral’s disused terrace to produce honey for sale. The bell tower was also an idle space. How about using it to hang ham, a local specialty?
“It all started as a joke, but it wasn’t that stupid in the end,” he said.
Altitude, a local pork cooperative of about 40 pig farmers, liked the idea partly for its marketing potential, but also for what it believed was the tower’s air quality and conditions for curing hams.
“It creates a link between business and heritage, product and terroir,” said Thierry Bousseau, the company’s communications manager.
The project received approval from both state and church authorities, and the first batch of hams were sold in markets, churches and online in the spring of 2022 for about $150 each. That’s about $50 more than the average local artisan ham. will bring it After Altitude recovered its costs, the proceeds went to the cathedral.
In all, about 300 hams were sold, and it ultimately cost more than $12,000 to restore the organ, Mr. Bousseau said.
The name of the project is “Florus Solatium”, a tribute to the cathedral’s keeper of the relics of the 5th-century saint Florus, believed to be the town’s founder. According to legend, the saint miraculously escaped thieves by reaching the top of a cliff, where residents welcomed him with traditional local ham. “Quid Solatium!” He is said to have shouted. “This is so comforting!”
Most of the ham curing process takes place at Altitude’s warehouse in a nearby town. But Mr. Boyer, a former headmaster, is convinced that the three months suspended from the tower’s wooden beams and exposed to the wind and vibrations of the bells give the meat a special quality.
“Most hams are dried in places where the humidity is always the same and the ventilation is always the same,” says chef Aurelien Gransagne of the nearby Michelin-starred Restaurant Serge Vieira, referring to the humidity in the air. He said. “There is a fluctuation and that is what makes the product special,” the bell tower added.
They say the thick, rosy flesh is just as delicious as Italian prosciutto or Spanish jamon. Mr. Gransagne’s restaurants serve rose-shaped pieces of meat along with other appetizers and tell a little story about where they come from.
Jean-Paul Rolland, who took over as chancellor from Mr Boyer in 2022, said that given the success of the tower-cured hams, he decided to put his foot down when the heritage architect declared the project risky.
“This building is for religious activities, so it is not up to the administration to tell us what we can or cannot do inside,” he said.
Oil stains would have appeared on old parquet floors long before the hams grew, he said.
“It would be like a landlord telling a tenant that they are not allowed to change the position of a painting in the living room,” Mr. Rolland added.
He made several small changes, including carpeting the tower floor and barring access to visitors. But Ham will hang on, he said.
Last October, Culture Minister Dati announced the following decision: The hams will remain intact if a “detailed study” examines the “administrative, material and organizational conditions” that will allow them to age safely. email. The process is still continuing.
Whatever the final decision, ham has become a household name in a country that values the gourmet products of small producers as much as the country’s religious heritage. St.-Flour made national headlines and ham sales were brisk. The Elysee Palace in Paris orders ham every three months and served slices of ham at its buffet in June, Altitude said. (It is unclear whether President Emmanuel Macron made some attempts, and the Elysee did not respond to a request for comment.)
Still, not everyone in St.-Flour is happy with the idea of turning the church into a marketplace.
“We had bees and now we have hams. What’s next, cheese?” asked Roger Merle, 68, a clothing store owner in the town.
