Margo came home yesterday with a reblochon (they were on special at the local supermarket) and as Jeremy is home today she thought that perhaps a tartiflette would be a good idea. It would also go well with the weather, given that the temperatures have plummetted by about 10° in the last week, so we're waking up to 1° in the moaning ...
You may be wondering what these things are and, if you're not familiar with the Savoie, you have every right to be. Rather than making you google the words I shall, for once, explain.
Reblochon is a cheese. A soft one. It comes in discs about an inch thick, maybe a bit more, and in diameter anything from 6 to 8 inches. Should have a good clean smell and not too runny in the middle (although there are some that like them runny, I'm not one of them).
According to the story, it got the name because at one time the farmers (who were for the most part what we'd call sharemilkers, who owned neither the land nor, necessarily, the animals) had to pay the landowner depending on milk production. So, like the tight-fisted Savoyard peasants that they were, they would actually do two milkings: the production from the first would go off to be sold and they'd pay a percentage of that to the owner, and the milk from the second milking (which I imagine would be lower in fat and generally nastier) would be used to make cheese for themselves.
Being Savoyards, they also couldn't bring themselves to speak French (in which the word for milking is "traire") - oh no, they used the local patois, in which the word was "blocher". Hence "reblochon", the cheese from when you "rebloche" the poor cow.
That's the story, anyway, and I'm sure that there are parts of it that are nearly true. Whatever, it's come quite a way from its early days and was deemed good enough to get AOC status in 1958.
As for tartiflette, that's a dish made with tartiffes. Obvious, really. The tartiffe is a small member of the rodent family, closely related to the shrew, which hibernates in winter and provided one of the few sources of protein available during that season (apart from the miserable cheese, of course). So they were fair game.
Now, if you're a French peasant (or a Savoyard one) the first question you'd ask yourself would be "can I eat it?". Once you've come to the conclusion that yes, you can eat it, and it probably won't poison you too much and even if it does who cares, average life expectancy is in the mid-40s so we're not actually doing long-term planning here, the second question that springs to mind is "how can I make it edible - or at least not actually vomit-worthy?" Which is where the cheese comes in.
Once you've got the answer to the second question, the third is, obviously enough, "Hey! Where do I get more of these suckers?" Mind you, when times were hard, the first question might be dispensed with on the grounds that you were going to die of hunger anyway if you didn't eat them, and the order of the other two might well be inversed.
The invention of the toasted sandwich-maker being still some centuries away, our benighted peasants had to make do with the technology of the time. Which involved spreading out the ingredients in a dish, putting half a reblochon on top (no great loss, back then, as noted above, it was probably pretty crap) and then baking it.
Finding small shrew-like rodents at your supermarket might be a bit tricky, so I'd suggest that you do like most Savoyards do and use potatoes. For which the word, in patois, is in fact "tartiffe". I'm sorry, I've been lying to you. But it's so much fun.
Okay, back to the real world. To make a tartiflette you will need a reblochon and as many potatoes as you think people will eat. I would personally go for at least 200-300gm per person and it doesn't hurt to make more, the leftovers are good. You will also need bacon, an onion or two, and cream.
The actual making is simple enough. Peel the potatoes and the onions, chop the potatoes into smallish chunks and the onions finely. Chop the bacon into little chunks (but don't bother to peel it). Mix everything together. Now stick the mixture into a large earthenware dish, spread it out and pour 20cl (at least) of cream over the top before bunging it in the oven at about 210° for half an hour.
This gives you the time to go down to the cellar and check out the red wine situation. Forget about Bordeaux, leave the Burgundy for another day (or at the limit, you could always open a bottle just to warm up, as it were) - go for a Côtes du Rhône; a youngish Chateauneuf du Pâpe would be good. Unless by some miracle you happen to have a bottle of Mondeuse down there, which would surprise me immensely (as most miracles do).
Mondeuse is the Savoyard wine par excellence: when made traditionally it's often green, tannic, and virtually undrinkable unless you're used to it, which goes a long way to explaining why it's not easy to find outside the region. And if it were always like that, there'd be no reason to look for it. When properly made, it's excellent.
At which point I shall digress, and recount the story of a visit to old Perrin, down in the village. It was many years back, and we had friends from NZ over to stay, we had a party that evening, and I promised John that we'd go down and get some wine. So off we trundled to see old Perrin, who welcomed us into his kitchen, where the pride of place was taken by the 1960's pure Formica/chrome buffet, groaning under the weight of a 1950's TV (70kg and an 8" screen).
He set out three jam-jars on the table, and filled each to the brim from an unlabelled bottle of white that just happened to be sitting around (nowadays, I can identify that as Jacquères). We emptied them. He filled them again. And we emptied them.
This could have gone on for some time, but he decided it was time to get on to the red, so we headed out of the kitchen and into the cave. Where he started to fill a jug from one of the big stainless-steel fermenting vats, just to get us started.
Then, without even a pause to rinse the jam-jars, he started opening bottles. All unlabelled, hence untaxed (for personal use, you understand). After the second or third, we were starting to feel quite mellow.
We finally managed to escape around 3pm, walking home with a dozen bottles each under our arms. Don't know how we made it to the party, nor how we made it back.
Anyway, the half-hour being over, you now need to slice the reblochon in half, to give you two discs. Put them, cut side down, on top of the tartiffes and sling it all back in the oven for another half-hour. At the end of which the potatoes should be tender and the cheese all melted in and achieved unity with it.
Opinions differ on what to to with the crispy cheese rind. Some chuck it, so they'll probably burn in hell. Right-minded people eat it - it's crispy, right? That's a basic food group.
This is peasant food and quite frankly, apart from putting lipstick and maybe a bit of eye-liner on it there's not much you can do to make it look pretty, so I wouldn't bother, myself. Just eat it. But not, please, in mid-summer - you'd regret that.
You may be wondering what these things are and, if you're not familiar with the Savoie, you have every right to be. Rather than making you google the words I shall, for once, explain.
Reblochon is a cheese. A soft one. It comes in discs about an inch thick, maybe a bit more, and in diameter anything from 6 to 8 inches. Should have a good clean smell and not too runny in the middle (although there are some that like them runny, I'm not one of them).
According to the story, it got the name because at one time the farmers (who were for the most part what we'd call sharemilkers, who owned neither the land nor, necessarily, the animals) had to pay the landowner depending on milk production. So, like the tight-fisted Savoyard peasants that they were, they would actually do two milkings: the production from the first would go off to be sold and they'd pay a percentage of that to the owner, and the milk from the second milking (which I imagine would be lower in fat and generally nastier) would be used to make cheese for themselves.
Being Savoyards, they also couldn't bring themselves to speak French (in which the word for milking is "traire") - oh no, they used the local patois, in which the word was "blocher". Hence "reblochon", the cheese from when you "rebloche" the poor cow.
That's the story, anyway, and I'm sure that there are parts of it that are nearly true. Whatever, it's come quite a way from its early days and was deemed good enough to get AOC status in 1958.
As for tartiflette, that's a dish made with tartiffes. Obvious, really. The tartiffe is a small member of the rodent family, closely related to the shrew, which hibernates in winter and provided one of the few sources of protein available during that season (apart from the miserable cheese, of course). So they were fair game.
Now, if you're a French peasant (or a Savoyard one) the first question you'd ask yourself would be "can I eat it?". Once you've come to the conclusion that yes, you can eat it, and it probably won't poison you too much and even if it does who cares, average life expectancy is in the mid-40s so we're not actually doing long-term planning here, the second question that springs to mind is "how can I make it edible - or at least not actually vomit-worthy?" Which is where the cheese comes in.
Once you've got the answer to the second question, the third is, obviously enough, "Hey! Where do I get more of these suckers?" Mind you, when times were hard, the first question might be dispensed with on the grounds that you were going to die of hunger anyway if you didn't eat them, and the order of the other two might well be inversed.
The invention of the toasted sandwich-maker being still some centuries away, our benighted peasants had to make do with the technology of the time. Which involved spreading out the ingredients in a dish, putting half a reblochon on top (no great loss, back then, as noted above, it was probably pretty crap) and then baking it.
Finding small shrew-like rodents at your supermarket might be a bit tricky, so I'd suggest that you do like most Savoyards do and use potatoes. For which the word, in patois, is in fact "tartiffe". I'm sorry, I've been lying to you. But it's so much fun.
Okay, back to the real world. To make a tartiflette you will need a reblochon and as many potatoes as you think people will eat. I would personally go for at least 200-300gm per person and it doesn't hurt to make more, the leftovers are good. You will also need bacon, an onion or two, and cream.
The actual making is simple enough. Peel the potatoes and the onions, chop the potatoes into smallish chunks and the onions finely. Chop the bacon into little chunks (but don't bother to peel it). Mix everything together. Now stick the mixture into a large earthenware dish, spread it out and pour 20cl (at least) of cream over the top before bunging it in the oven at about 210° for half an hour.
This gives you the time to go down to the cellar and check out the red wine situation. Forget about Bordeaux, leave the Burgundy for another day (or at the limit, you could always open a bottle just to warm up, as it were) - go for a Côtes du Rhône; a youngish Chateauneuf du Pâpe would be good. Unless by some miracle you happen to have a bottle of Mondeuse down there, which would surprise me immensely (as most miracles do).
Mondeuse is the Savoyard wine par excellence: when made traditionally it's often green, tannic, and virtually undrinkable unless you're used to it, which goes a long way to explaining why it's not easy to find outside the region. And if it were always like that, there'd be no reason to look for it. When properly made, it's excellent.
At which point I shall digress, and recount the story of a visit to old Perrin, down in the village. It was many years back, and we had friends from NZ over to stay, we had a party that evening, and I promised John that we'd go down and get some wine. So off we trundled to see old Perrin, who welcomed us into his kitchen, where the pride of place was taken by the 1960's pure Formica/chrome buffet, groaning under the weight of a 1950's TV (70kg and an 8" screen).
He set out three jam-jars on the table, and filled each to the brim from an unlabelled bottle of white that just happened to be sitting around (nowadays, I can identify that as Jacquères). We emptied them. He filled them again. And we emptied them.
This could have gone on for some time, but he decided it was time to get on to the red, so we headed out of the kitchen and into the cave. Where he started to fill a jug from one of the big stainless-steel fermenting vats, just to get us started.
Then, without even a pause to rinse the jam-jars, he started opening bottles. All unlabelled, hence untaxed (for personal use, you understand). After the second or third, we were starting to feel quite mellow.
We finally managed to escape around 3pm, walking home with a dozen bottles each under our arms. Don't know how we made it to the party, nor how we made it back.
Anyway, the half-hour being over, you now need to slice the reblochon in half, to give you two discs. Put them, cut side down, on top of the tartiffes and sling it all back in the oven for another half-hour. At the end of which the potatoes should be tender and the cheese all melted in and achieved unity with it.
Opinions differ on what to to with the crispy cheese rind. Some chuck it, so they'll probably burn in hell. Right-minded people eat it - it's crispy, right? That's a basic food group.
This is peasant food and quite frankly, apart from putting lipstick and maybe a bit of eye-liner on it there's not much you can do to make it look pretty, so I wouldn't bother, myself. Just eat it. But not, please, in mid-summer - you'd regret that.
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