Village in south-west France celebrates its world-famous peppers

The village of Espelette in the south-west of France is preparing to celebrate the annual festival in honour of its world-famous peppers.

The village of around 2,000 residents, located within Cambo-les-Bains near Bayonne in the Pays Basque has a rich cultural identity strongly linked with Spain. 

Its name is recognisable to most because of Piment d’Espelette, a spice that is exported around the world. 

Originally imported from Mexico in the 1600s, the climate and sloping, sun-drenched lands in and around the village of Espelette offered ideal growing conditions for this bright-red pepper. 

It was awarded the AOC (Appellation d’origine contrôlée) label in June 2000, making it the only French spice to have that honour. 

The villagers are rightly proud of their produce, and host an annual festival to celebrate it.

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La Fête du Piment d’Espelette

The village holds its Piment festival at the end of the harvest for these edible gems. This year’s event takes place on October 26 to 27 and will include street food, dances, Basque music and traditional games, as well as parades in traditional costume, a visual treat that visitors always enjoy. 

Visitors will see strings of peppers drying in the sun outside the houses, nearly all of which have deep-red shutters to match their iconic produce. 

The colour makes for a fantastic backdrop for the music, dancing and late-night revelry organised during the festival, including open-air meals that are sociable, relaxed and open to all and sundry. 

Alongside the celebrations, there are more serious elements, including a mass held to bless the pepper harvest, and prizes for the best peppers. 

The winning peppers

The criteria are very strict: peppers must be 100% red, with a regular conical shape, and measure between 7cm and 14cm. 

They are individually picked and sorted before being dried in an oven: the slow dehydration process is essential for the flavours to develop fully. 

Once the peppers are completely dried, they are ground up into a powder with a recognisable deep-red hue that is used liberally in regional recipes, as well as in the production of Bayonne ham. 

In Espelette itself, many producers open up their farms to visitors, particularly during the festival. This gives you the chance to see where the peppers are grown and harvested, to learn about the drying process, and discover a few traditional recipes that showcase the piment d’Espelette and its unique flavour.

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A historic Basque village

Even if you are not here for the autumn festival, Espelette is well worth a visit. Among the charming, white-washed houses and cobbled alleyways, you will find lively pavement cafés and restaurants. 

The village church, Saint-Etienne, has a highly decorative altarpiece from the 1700s, and this is where the mass is held during the annual festival.

A noble family once owned all the surrounding land, and around the year 1000, they built a large fortified castle flanked with five towers on the site of an earlier fortress. 

In 1694, Baroness Juliana Henriquez died without any heirs and bequeathed the castle to the inhabitants of Espelette. 

Today, only a part of the outer wall and one tower remain, which houses the Tourist Information office, the mairie and an exhibition space.

Home of the first Miss France

One of the exhibitions is dedicated to a famous villager, Agnès Sauret, who effectively became the first ‘Miss France’ in 1920. 

She heard about a national competition to find the most beautiful woman in France and sent her photo to them, writing ‘I'm only 17, tell me if I should cross France to try my luck’. 

Through various rounds of the competition, she gained twice as many public votes as her nearest rival and won by a landslide. 

Agnès died in Argentina in 1928, and her mother sold most of her possessions to bring her back home and provide a resting place for her daughter in Espelette.

The festival runs from Saturday, October 26 to Sunday, October 27, 2024 in Espelette. For more information, visit espelette-paysbasque.com