Struggling to raise money to restore the ancient organ of his cathedral, a priest from St.-Flour, a small town in central France, came up with a creative solution. He converted one of the barns into a workshop where farmers could hang their horses to dry.
For almost two years, after being blessed by the local bishop, the pig’s legs moved quietly in the dry air of the north tower of the cathedral, bringing much-needed funds and delighting charcuterie lovers. Then an inspector from the organization that oversees French buildings came in.
After noticing an oil stain on the bottom of the iron tower, along with other irregularities, the inspector ordered the horses to be dismounted. They were a fire hazard, he said in a December 2023 report, according to church officials. When the cathedral refused to remove the hams, the dispute escalated to the country’s culture minister, Rachida Dati.
The battle of the St.-Flour hams was derided as an example of how overzealous bureaucrats can destroy new local initiatives. It also spoke to a larger issue facing aging churches across France as they grapple with costly reparations: Who will pay to preserve the country’s vast religious heritage?
After the French Revolution, church buildings were confiscated by the state, which eventually took responsibility for overseeing most of them. But the central government and local municipalities have struggled to fund the upkeep of the country’s temples and churches.
The restoration of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was destroyed by fire in 2019, has been financed by an estimated 900 million dollars. But religious buildings across the country have been left to fend for themselves.
Across France, approximately 15,000 of the 45,000 religious buildings are classified as historical monuments, according to the Ministry of Culture. More than 2,300 363 of them are in poor condition, and 363 are considered vulnerable, the department said.
“The situation is alarming,” said Hadrien Lacoste, vice president of the Religious Heritage Observatory, an independent non-profit group. “Religious practice is declining,” he added, “and the population is declining in rural areas.”
Despite the declining number of churchgoers, towns like St.-Flour, with a population of about 6,400, see their cathedrals and churches as things that define their identity and feel a strong need to take care of them.
“We have realized that each of our churches is a small Notre-Dame, that a town without a church is like Paris without Notre-Dame,” said Mathieu Lours, a French historian specializing in religious architecture.
In France – as has happened elsewhere in Europe – decaying churches are often converted into gymnasiums, restaurants, hotels or houses.
In St.-Flour, the renaissance church next to the cathedral was demolished and is now a market and cultural center.
Maintaining the cathedral itself was considered an important, if expensive, endeavor for the city. St.-Flour is in the heart of Cantal, a region of France known for its green hills and its local cheese. In the distance, the cathedral, high on a rocky outcrop, looms over the town like a fortress.
“You know the saying, all roads lead to Rome?” said Patrice Boulard, a meat producer who owns 145 tower steps to dry hams there. “Here in St.-Flour, all roads lead to the cathedral.”
The idea of a healing workshop in the bell tower was the brainchild of Gilles Boyer, then the rector of the cathedral, after the funds that should have been given to the authorities to repair the 19th century church choir never materialized.
A foodie who once managed a restaurant in Paris, Mr. Boyer had already set up beehives on an unused lot of the cathedral to produce honey for sale. The bell tower was also an unused space. Why not use it for hanging hams, a regional specialty, he wondered?
“It all started as a joke,” he said, “but it wasn’t dumb after all.”
Altitude, a local charcuterie cooperative made up of about 40 pig farmers, liked the idea, partly because of the marketing potential, but also because of what they believe is the special quality of the air and tower conditions for curing the hams.
“It creates a connection between business and heritage, between the product and its terroir,” said Thierry Bousseau, the company’s communications manager.
The project was approved by the state and church authorities, and the first batch of hams was sold in the market, in the church and on the Internet in the spring of 2022, for about $ 150 each, about 50 dollars more than the average of the local artisan. I will fetch. The profits, when Altitude recouped its costs, were given to the cathedral.
In all, about 300 hams have been sold and more than $12,000 spent to finally restore the organ, Mr Bousseau said.
The project was called “Florus Solatium,” a tribute to the city’s supposed founder, a fifth-century saint named Florus whose remains are kept in the cathedral. According to legend, the saint miraculously escaped the criminals by reaching the top of the cliff, where the villagers welcomed him with traditional local meat. “Good solatium!” he is said to have exclaimed. “What a comfort!”
Most of the hams’ ripening process takes place in Altitude’s warehouses in the nearby town. But Mr. Boyer, the former director, is convinced that the three months spent clinging to the tower’s wooden beams, exposed to wind and metal vibrations, is what gives the meat its special quality.
“Many hams are dried in places where the hygrometry is always the same, the ventilation is always the same,” said Aurélien Gransagne, chef at Restaurant Serge Vieira, a nearby Michelin-starred restaurant, talking about the humidity in the air. In the steel tower, he added, “you have flexibility, and that’s what makes the product special.”
The thick, red meat is similar to the best Italian prosciutto or Spanish jamón, he said. The restaurant of Mr. Gransagne provides diners with rose-shaped cuts of meat alongside other delicacies – as well as telling a bit of a story about its origins.
Given the success of the tower-cured hams, Jean-Paul Rolland, who took over from Mr Boyer in 2022, said he decided to put his foot down when the architect declared the project dangerous.
He said: “This building is focused on religious activities, so it is not for the management to tell us what we can do or not inside.”
He said the grease stain appeared on the floor long before the hams were raised.
“It is like a landlord telling a tenant that he is not allowed to change the position of the painting in the living room,” added Mr. Roland.
He made small changes, such as putting carpets on the floors of the towers and barring visitors from entering. But the hams will continue to hang, he said.
In October, Ms. Dati, the minister of culture, announced the decision: The hams will remain, as long as a “detailed study” will examine the “management, material and organizational conditions” so that the hams can be matured safely, her office said. email. That process is ongoing.
Regardless of the final decision, hams have become something that causes célèbre in a country that appreciates the gastronomic contributions of very small producers as a religious heritage of the country. St.-Flour made national headlines, and sales of hams were brisk. The Élysée Palace in Paris has a standing order of hams every three months, and served slices of it to the restaurant in June, Altitude said. (It is unclear whether President Emmanuel Macron has tried, and the Elysée did not respond to requests 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 deer. What’s next, cheese?” asked Roger Merle, 68, who owns a clothing store in town.
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