2023-12-01 10:03:41
Published on December 1, 2023 at 11:03. / Modified on December 1, 2023 at 11:10.
“Le Temps” is joining forces with “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” as part of a series of articles devoted to wine and gastronomy. Find this content as we go along in our dedicated folder.
Sion, Vissigen district. Large buildings adjoin the Tourbillon stadium, home of FC Sion. A short distance away, in the middle of the concrete blocks, in a place that will be kept secret, a few Crocus sativus point the tip of their noses, bathed in an autumn sun which has just risen. At the beginning of October, around twenty purple flowers, with bright red pistils, begin to bloom, while thousands of green shoots fill the field. A sign that the saffron harvest is beginning in Valais.
This small urban field of around 150 square meters belongs to Marcel Maurer. The former president of Sion has been cultivating this spice for ten years. First in Savièse, in terrain that is too steep and not very conducive to this culture, then in its district of Vissigen. He knows that the next two or three weeks will not be easy. “I’m going to race,” he smiles. If, during the year, the cultivation of saffron requires little work – apart from weeding from time to time and mowing the field a few weeks before harvest – the picking time is laborious. Marcel Maurer is preparing to collect nearly 10,000 flowers. “One day there can be 20 and the next day 1000,” he explains, while admitting that “picking is not what takes the most time.” Because once the flowers have been harvested, you must separate the three pistils of the flower and dry them. “It’s this operation that takes hours,” underlines the former elected official.
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