What do buckwheat, hydrangeas and artichokes have in common? All three are part of Brittany’s visual or culinary identity today, yet all three were imported there at different times. For plants as for human beings, our lands are enriched by successive migrations.
4 mins
Brittany is today the leading agricultural region in France. A third of the country’s tomatoes are produced there, for example, obviously in greenhouses, and even if this fruit is associated in the collective imagination with more Mediterranean regions, we often forget that its original name, golden apple or apple of love, was that of a decorative plant from South America, where it was not eaten either.
Also listen: agriculture in Brittany, a model running out of steam.
It’s at 18e century only that we understand that there is nothing poisonous about it and it is therefore invited to the table of the Provençals as well as that of the Italians, of whom it becomes one of the favorite condiments. Its arrival in Brittany, as a cultivated fruit, dates from the great turning point in intensive agriculture, but another dish today considered traditional, like the artichoke, is a Florentine import, which accompanied Queen Catherine from Medici.
Buckwheat arrived in Brittany during the Renaissance
The famous artichoke from Brittany, which is today the best-selling species in France, actually comes from a Parisian crossbreed from the beginning of the 19e century. Black wheat, this pseudo-cereal which constitutes the essential ingredient of pancakes, a Breton dish if ever there was one, arrived in Brittany via China and Mongolia – and not by the Arabs as its name buckwheat might suggest. . Coming down Europe from north to south, it was only cultivated in Brittany from 1497.
Read also : Crepe and pancake: at the cœheart of Breton heritage
It was around the same time that apples began to be grown in Brittany, a fruit from Central Asia, known in Europe since Antiquity. We have already been making cider in Normandy since the 11the century, since the 13e century in Brittany. It’s at 19e century the second most consumed drink in France and we drink more than a liter per day and per inhabitant in Rennes. As late as the sixteenth century, the first strawberries arrived from the Americas. But it is a Chilean variety brought to Brest by a certain Amédée François Frézier at the beginning of the 18e century which gave birth to the Plougastel strawberry, which has become national pride.
The Roscoff onion arrived from Portugal in the 17the century. This plant, known to the Gauls under other varieties, is native to Central Asia. The potato also comes from South America, only conquering the north of the continent after passing through England. In Ireland, it was a mildew epidemic that triggered the great famine of the 1840s and massive emigration to the New World.
Bougainville hydrangeas
Literally shunned by the French, the potato was literally imposed on the poor lands of Brittany to which it could adapt during the Revolution, before becoming in a few decades an essential element of local cuisine. Brittany did not escape the proliferation of Colorado potato beetles in the immediate post-war period, an insect from Mexico which was historically the first to prove resistant to DTT.
The transformation is even more disturbing when we talk about flowers which are now an integral part of the landscape, including in the wild. This is the case with the dahlia, a Mexican flower initially imported as a tuber and which was imagined to be able to replace the potato. The magnolia is brought from the Americas to Nantes, but it is above all the hydrangea brought to France from the Mascarenes during Bougainville’s voyage which is today omnipresent in Brittany, where it appreciates the humid and temperate climate. Kept in pots and in a greenhouse upon its arrival, it was withering away.
Read also : Jeanne Barret, the peasant who toured the world
Amid such proliferation, it is little wonder that among the first books printed, Leonhart Fuchs’s History of Plants was the biggest success of the 16e century after the Bible. Fuchsia was given its name in homage to him at the end of the 17the century, a plant today very well acclimatized in Brittany and native to the Caribbean and New Zealand.
To be seen at the Port-Musée de Douarnenez until November 2, 2025, the exhibition In the garden of the Hesperideson the history of vegetables, fruits and plants from Brittany from elsewhere.
Our selection on the subject