Struggling to raise funds to restore his cathedral’s antique organ, a priest from St.-Flour, a small town in the heart of France, came up with a creative solution. He turned one of the bell towers into a drying room where farmers could hang their hams to dry.
Almost two years after the blessed by the local bishoppig’s feet swayed peacefully in the dry air of the cathedral’s north tower, bringing in much-needed funds and delighting confectioners. Then an inspector from the organization that oversees French architectural heritage stepped in.
After noticing a greasy stain on the floor of the bell tower, as well as other violations, the inspector ordered the prosciutto to be removed. They were a fire hazard, he said in a report in December 2023, according to cathedral officials. When the cathedral refused to remove the prosciutto, the dispute escalated all the way to the local minister of culture, Rachida Dati.
The battle over St.-Flour prosciutto has been widely derided as an example of how overzealous officials can undo innovative local initiatives. He also spoke about a larger issue grappling with aging churches across France as they face costly reparations: Who will pay to maintain the country’s vast religious heritage?
After the French Revolution, church property was confiscated by the state, which eventually assumed responsibility for overseeing most of it. But the central government and local municipalities have had a hard time financing the maintenance of cathedrals and churches in the country.
Restoration of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was devastated by devastating fire in 2019, it was financed with around 900 million dollars in donations. But religious buildings in the rest of the country are mostly left to fend for themselves.
Across France, an estimated 15,000 religious buildings out of 45,000 are classified as historical monuments, according to the Ministry of Culture. More than 2,300 of them are in poor condition, and 363 are considered endangered, the ministry announced.
“The situation is alarming,” said Hadrien Lacoste, vice president of the Religious Heritage Observatory, an independent nonprofit group. “There has been a decline in religious practice,” he added, “and there is a decline in demographics in rural areas.”
In spite of decline in church attendancetowns like St.-Flour, which has a population of around 6,400, see their cathedrals and churches as elements that define their identity and feel a strong need to maintain them.
“We realized that each of our churches is a small Notre-Dame, that a village without a church is like Paris without Notre-Dame,” said Mathieu Lours, a French historian who specializes in religious architecture.
In France – as was the case elsewhere in Europe – churches are falling apart often transformed to gyms, restaurants, hotels or apartments.
In St.-Flour, the Renaissance church next to the cathedral was deconsecrated and is now a market and a cultural place.
The upkeep of the cathedral itself was considered a key, if expensive, city effort. St.-Flour is located in the heart of Cantal, an area of France known for its green hilly landscapes and local cheese. From a distance, the cathedral, on top of a rocky hill, towers over the city like a fortress.
“You know what they say, all roads lead to Rome?” said Patrice Boulard, the butcher in charge of climbing the tower’s 145 steps to hang the hams there. “Well, 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, who was the rector of the cathedral at the time, after the funds that the authorities were supposed to provide for the repair of the 19th century church choir organ were never paid.
A foodie who once ran a restaurant in Paris, Mr Boyer had already set up beehives on an unused cathedral terrace to produce honey to sell. The belfry was also an unused space. Why not use it to hang prosciutto, a specialty of this region, he wondered?
“It all started as a joke,” he said, “but it wasn’t that stupid after all.”
Altitude, a local meat and meat production cooperative of about 40 pig farmers, liked the idea, partly because of the marketing potential, but also because of, they believed, the special air quality and conditions in the ham drying tower.
“It creates a connection between business and heritage, between products and its terroir”, said Thierry Bousseau, the company’s communications manager.
The project was approved by both state and church authorities, and the first batch of ham went on sale at markets, in church and online in the spring of 2022, at a price of about $150 a piece, about $50 more than the average domestic ham would fetch. The profits, after Altitude recouped their costs, were given to the cathedral.
In all, about 300 prosciuttos were sold and more than $12,000 was spent to finally restore the organ, Mr. Bousseau said.
The project was named “Florus Solatium,” in honor of the supposed founder of the city, a fifth-century saint named Florus, whose relics are kept in the cathedral. According to legendthe saint miraculously escaped the robbers by reaching the top of the cliff, where the inhabitants welcomed him with traditional local ham. “Quid Solatium!” he said he exclaimed. “What a comfort!”
Most of the prosciutto ripening process takes place in Altitude’s warehouses in a nearby town. But Mr. Boyer, a former rector, is convinced that the three months they spend attached to the wooden beams of the tower, exposed to the wind and the vibrations of the bells, is what gives the meat its special quality.
“Most prosciutto is dried in places where the humidity is always the same, the ventilation is always the same,” said Aurélien Gransagne, chef at Restaurant Serge Vieiraa nearby Michelin-starred restaurant, thinking of the humidity in the air. In the bell tower, he added, “you have fluctuations and that’s what makes the product special.”
The thick, ruddy meat is just as good as the best prosciutto from Italy or jamón from Spain, he said. Mr. Gransagne’s restaurant offers diners rose-shaped slices of meat alongside other appetizers — and a little history of its origins.
Considering the success of prosciutto in the tower, Jean-Paul Rolland, who took over as rector in 2022 from Mr. Boyer, said he decided to back out after a heritage architect declared the project dangerous.
“The building is dedicated to religious practice,” he said, “so it’s not up to the administration to tell us what we can and can’t do inside.”
The grease stain probably appeared on the ancient parquet floor long before the hams were brought in, he said.
“It’s like a landlord telling a tenant they can’t move a painting in the living room,” Mr Rolland added.
He made some small changes, such as carpeting the floor of the towers and banning visitors. But the hams will still hang, he said.
In October, Ms. Dati, the culture minister, announced the decision: the hams will remain, provided a “detailed study” examines the “administrative, material and organizational conditions” for the safe maturation of the ham, her office said in an email. That process is still ongoing.
Regardless of the final decision, the hams have become something of a célèbre in a country that values the gastronomic offerings of small producers as much as the country’s religious heritage. St.-Flour made national headlines, and prosciutto sales were brisk. The Elysee Palace in Paris has a standing order for the ham every three months, and in June it served slices of it at a buffet, according to Altitude. (It’s unclear if President Emmanuel Macron has attempted any, 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 something like a market.
“There were bees, now there are hams. What’s next, sir?” asked Roger Merle, 68, owner of a clothing store in the town.
