Obviously in the south there is the Noirmoutier, but the small Malouine tells a lovely story of the potato and its soil. Centuries of enriching the earth with seaweed has given the potato a very particular flavour; the films “Entre terre et merre” (Between Earth and Sea) and “Le champ Dolent” (The Dolent Field) tell this story.

The coast is a region of new potatoes with a temperate climate, influenced by the warm Atlantic currents of the Gulf Stream. As it's sheltered from the changing moods of the sea, serenity reigns. In the silt and sandy soils, made fertile with wrack and chalk, anything grows, in a greenhouse, under plastic, or in the open field. I'm spoilt for choice: semi-dried Cancalais white beans, ripe after August 15, which will accompany Cancalaise abalone or the rack of lamb from the salt marshes; cauliflower which he'll match with warm oysters; asparagus from Cherrueix, delicious though little-known; peas from Vivier-sur-mer, wild strawberries and gariguettes, blackcurrants and redcurrants from Louis Pichot in Saint-Méloir.

Above Cancale, paths lead him to the gardens of the Robin family, next to Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes. On the way I take the cliff path to pick some sea grass from the rocks, which I ate with buttered bread during his childhood and which he uses today as a condiment to bring out the iodized-salty contrasts of a recipe. I pick rock samphire, also known as sea fennel, along the Chemin des Douaniers, salad burnett, wild thyme, which the rabbits love, broom flowers which will perfume a scallop stock in season, wild sorrel which I munched as a child. The sight of rows of artichokes perfectly aligned, furrows of Brussels sprouts, small spinach, turnips, onions, and potatoes in flower fills me with joy. The Robin family provides me with the first sirtéma, surely the best new potatoes — eaten as they are after having wiped them, with skin so thin that it melts as the potato cooks, rubbed with coarse salt in May and eated with salted butter.

If I had to choose betwen this sirtéma and caviar, even the finest caviar, I would take the new potato because I know the producer and the way in which he prepared the soil, while he has never met the sturgeon fisherman and knows nothing about his fishing methods. At Madame Leroux's farm I also find bricolin, a cabbage that has no equal for making a great soup with bacon and potato. Her fresh vegetables are on display at the Saint-Servan market just outside Saint-Malo on Friday mornings. I prefer 1 kilogram of first new potatoes to 1 kilogram of caviar because they tell the story of my land and symbolise this world which is one of sailors and adventurers but also peasants. An adventurer but also a peasant, the sirtéma (picked by hand) is queen; avoid the starlette and even more so the ostara, which has no flavour or that of a bad turnip.