Bandrele · YT

Éco-musée du sel

On the southeastern coast of Mayotte, the Éco-musée du sel in Bandréle is a working, open-air museum devoted to one of France's most unusual artisan traditions: making white salt by hand and by fire on the edge of a mangrove. Here the salt is produced the old way by a cooperative of women, the mama shingo, who explain and demonstrate every step of a craft passed down mother to daughter for generations. What makes it remarkable is that Bandréle is the only place in the French overseas territories where salt is still made by the ignigène method — collecting salt-laden silt and evaporating the brine over a wood fire, rather than in sun-dried salt pans. The site lets you watch that whole process, taste the result, and take home a bag of this strikingly white, delicately flavoured sea salt.