FÊTE DU POINTU

For the occasion, the sea snail will be available in a variety of mouth-watering recipes, each more tempting than the last. The public will be able to taste them and learn from the fishermen about the unusual history of this gastropod…

The “Pointu” owes its name to the fearsome prickles spiraling around its shell. You can always call this spiny murex by its clever name: “Bolinus Brandaris”, but it’s more interesting to tell the original story behind this complicated name?
This age-old snail served a very precise and prestigious function from Antiquity to the Middle Ages: it secreted a mucus that provided the “purple of the ancients”, or “Tyrian purple” (named after the Tyrian oxide it contains).
The high cost of purple meant that it was only used for fabrics destined for the gods and ruling classes of the societies surrounding the Mediterranean. In Rome, it was the symbol of power: the width of the purple band worn on the toga and the more or less bright color of the red garments indicated the wearer’s social status. Only emperors wore garments dyed entirely purple. In Constantinople, the emperor’s chamber was purple, and the son of an emperor born while his father was reigning, i.e. in this chamber, bore the prestigious nickname of “Porphyrogenetus” (“born in purple”, in Greek).
The scarcity of Murex led to the disappearance of purple dye manufacturing techniques.

Today, the “Pointu” has regained its purely culinary function. Although the Spaniards have always been very fond of it, its consumption had been somewhat shunned in France, but this sea snail has won back its fans over the last ten years.
So, this “Fête du Pointu” comes at just the right time, and the setting of Grau d?Agde was just the right one, especially as the very official “Confrérie des Pointus” was founded there in 2014.

Paying: Facebook info: La Confrérie des Pointus
> 10h 00: Quai Commandant Méric/Place


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