This snail of the sea will be for the occasion declined in various recipes more tempting the ones than the others by the restaurant owners. The public will be able to taste them and learn from the fishermen the unusual history of this gastropod…
The “Pointu” owes its name to the formidable spines arranged in a spiral around its shell. In order to shine in society, one can always call this spiny murex by its learned name: the “Bolinus Brandaris”, but it is more interesting to tell the original story behind this complicated name?
This age-old snail has indeed fulfilled a very precise and prestigious function from Antiquity to the Middle Ages: it secretes a mucus that provided the “purple of the ancients”, or “purple of Tyre” (from the name of the Tyrian oxide it contains).
The very high cost of purple reserved its use to fabrics for the gods and the 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 clothes indicated the social status of the wearer. Only emperors wore clothes dyed entirely in purple. In Constantinople, the emperor’s chamber was purple, and the son of an emperor born while his father was ruling, i.e. in this chamber, bore the prestigious nickname of “Porphyrogenet” (“born in purple”, in Greek).
The scarcity of the Murex caused the disappearance of the techniques of manufacturing the purple dye.
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 managed to win back its fans over the last ten years.
This “Fête du Pointu” is therefore a timely event, and the setting of Grau d’Agde was very appropriate, especially since the very official “Confrérie des Pointus” was founded there in 2014.
Paying:
Facebook info: La Confrérie des Pointus
> 10:00 am : Quai Commandant Méric
