In Flacey, in Côte-d’Or, watercress grows on the banks of the Flacière, in a form of cultivation closely tied to water. This seasonal plant can be served raw or cooked, and offers a simple way to vary soups, noodles and sandwiches. The key is to distinguish cultivated watercress from the kind you might be tempted to pick in the wild.
A crop tied to a water source
Watercress is not just another leafy vegetable in the kitchen garden: its cultivation depends on a water-fed environment. France Inter’s food column locates the Flacey watercress farm on the banks of the Flacière and says the farm was taken over by Marlène Boirin around ten years ago. The production site and the way it fits into the landscape are as much a part of this bunch’s story as its arrival on the plate.
The column reports that it is the only watercress farm in Côte-d’Or, and mentions another in Burgundy, near Sens. This gives a sense of a local crop that is not widely grown, without making watercress an old or exclusive regional speciality. Across France, Méréville, in Essonne, is better known for this crop.
Raw or cooked: two ways to use it
Watercress can add leaves to a wide range of dishes. Raw, it can be added to cold soba noodles with a sauce made from tahini, olive oil and rice vinegar. Cooked, it works well in soup, for example with udon and a hard-boiled egg. The column also suggests an egg and watercress sandwich, or congee: a soup of rice simmered for a long time in stock, served with a soft-boiled egg and watercress.
These ideas do not mean the plant has to be reserved for a particular recipe. Rather, they show how to use it: as raw leaves in a cold dish, or added to a hot preparation. For soup, the noodles and egg make a more substantial meal; in a sandwich, watercress goes with a familiar ingredient. These combinations are suggested by Elvira Masson in her column. The quantity, when to add it and the seasoning can be adjusted to suit the preparation.
Where to find Flacey watercress
According to the column, Marlène Boirin sells her produce at the watercress farm on Friday afternoons. Watercress is also sold at the Halles de Dijon by market gardeners including Laurent Guilleminot and Françoise Viard, as well as at Ferme Dubois. These are the sales outlets mentioned in the column; it is best to check opening times and availability with the sellers before making the trip.
For people in Luxembourg, Flacey and Dijon are not nearby places to shop, but the example helps explain what the label ‘local produce’ means: an identifiable crop, a production site and specific outlets. If you find watercress near you, asking the seller whether it is cultivated and where it comes from can help distinguish it from wild-picked watercress.
Wild watercress is not a shortcut
The distinction matters for food safety. French health authorities strongly advise against eating wild watercress, which can harbour liver flukes, parasites that cause fascioliasis. This warning does not mean that all running water is safe to drink, or that a plant found in a stream is comparable to a cultivated bunch sold by a producer. Identifying a plant is not enough to establish that picking and eating it are safe.
For fruit and vegetables, health advice reminds people to wash produce before eating it. Washing, however, does not make a wild plant safe when the place where it was picked poses a parasitic risk. So the simplest way to cook with watercress is to buy it from a producer or retailer, then follow the usual hygiene advice.
Flacey’s watercress thus connects a particular farming practice with very accessible ways of using it: a few raw leaves in noodles, or watercress in soup. It is a way to discover a seasonal product through its origin and how it is prepared, without confusing controlled cultivation with picking plants by the water.
References
- France Inter, ‘Burgundian watercress’
- Préfecture du Cantal, ‘Eating raw: what are the risks and how can they be avoided?’
Watercress by the water in Armenia. Illustrative photo.
Credit: Dav Sargsyan — Wikimedia Commons — CC0 1.0.
