from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Aligot being prepared for an outdoor party
Only when the potatoes and cheese can be drawn into long strands
is the Aligot ready.
Photograph
courtesy of E
www.flickr.com/photos/anduze-traveller/418718534/
Aligot is a beautiful, mashed potato and cheese dish that I'll always try and order when visiting a restaurant where it is a specialty. Versions of Aligot are made in the department of Cantal in the Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes where locally, they use a young Cantal AOP cheese or a local tomme. Over the border in the region of Occitanie in Aveyron's department, the cheese will be a young Laguiole AOP cheese. In contrast, in the department of Lozère, they use all the cheeses mentioned above as they are also made locally.
Added to the cheese and mashed potatoes in an Aligot are garlic, crème fraîche, milk and butter. This combination is carefully stirred until long threads of cheese and potato may be drawn from the pot. From personal experience on a cold winter's evening, after forty minutes in the freezing cold, while looking for a taxi and no time for lunch, the smell alone can be mistaken for the ambrosia of the gods. The thought of the mashed potatoes and an excellent cheese with all the additions make my mouth water as I write this.
Aligot will be served, in private homes, with sausages. Usually, local, small, salami type, grilled, pork sausages, though that is not written in stone. Restaurants that offer Aligot on their menus may also offer sausages, but they often upgrade their menus by offering duck, roast beef, or lamb.
Aligot in a restaurant.
Photograph
courtesy of Omid Tavalla
www.flickr.com/photos/tavallai/5850019237/
The original recipe is fiercely claimed by the three departments noted above; success has many fathers and mothers. The locals will tell you that all the claims and counterclaims have been going on for five hundred years, although until the second half of the 17th century, most of France thought potatoes were toxic. At one time, there was even a French law that banned eating potatoes! Despite the arguments about Aligot's origins in the restaurants that I have visited, all the diners argue about is which cheese is best.
If you do care about where Aligot was first made, first look at a map of France; on the map, you will see that the three departments with the most persuasive claims to the original recipe are neighbors. Tasty recipes quickly travel, and so I give them all a tie for first place. Despite that, I may be refused entry to Cantal, Aveyron, and Lozère for saying so, but I have enjoyed excellent Aligots outside these areas as well.
Aligot
on French menus:
Mercredis Aligot Soir –
This is restaurant menu shorthand advising regular customers that Aligot is
offered every Wednesday evening. Aligot began as a festive dish, which locally
it still is. Therefore, some local restaurants will have it on the menu once a
week so revelers can book ahead.
Aligot d'Auvergne Saucisse et Salade de Printemps – Auvergne Aligot
served with an Auvergne Sausage and a spring salad. The traditional Auvergne sausage is a small salami type
sausage, about 100 grams (3.5 oz), made with pork, pork fat, and beef; it is
usually grilled when served with Aligot. When this sausage is not served with Aligot,
it may be eaten uncooked like any salami type sausage. The spring salad
accompanying the Aligot and sausage on the menu will include young salad
leaves, sprouts, young vegetable shoots, and often include mache,
lamb’s lettuce, France’s favorite salad green.
Aligot
in a restaurant.
Photograph
courtesy of Christian MANGE
www.flickr.com/photos/23149310@N06/9831497313/
L'Aligot avec le Gigot d'Agneau de
Lozère - Aligot served with roast leg of lamb from the department of Lozère. A roasted leg of lamb is
enough for four, possibly more, so you will be offered slices. Lamb in France
is preferred rosé, pink, and unlike a steak, you will rarely be asked how you would like your lamb
served. While I prefer my lamb in the French manner that is rosé, if you want
your lamb cooked differently, advise your waiter when you order. (Well done is
bien cuit, pronounced bien kwee).
The lambs of Lozère are highly rated and are raised naturally by
their mothers in the Cevennes National Park; these lambs will be on local menus
from June through November.
A
nice serving of Aligot.
Photograph
courtesy of subberculture
https://www.flickr.com/photos/photojoy/247508360/sizes/m/
Filet de Bœuf, Purée d'Ail, Aligot au Bleu
Vercors-Sassenage AOP –
A cut from the tenderloin, the beef fillet, served with a garlic potato puree and Aligot made with the blue
Vercors-Sassenage AOP cheese, a change from the traditional yellow cheeses used.
Vercors-Sassenage is a 50% fat cow's milk cheese made with pasteurized milk. It
is mild for a blue cheese with a sweet and slightly nutty taste. The cheese is
aged for a minimum of 21 days before being sold. Bleu de Sassenage had nearly
disappeared until a dairy in Grenoble in the region of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
began producing it for cheese lovers and brought it back to the market some 50
years ago.
Most of the farm-made versions of Vercors-Sassenage are now made within the Natural Regional Park of Vercors' boundaries. The park is set within the departments of Isère and Drôme in the region of Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes.
The park's website is in French only, but the Bing or Google or other translate apps are easily understood.
http://parc-du-vercors.fr/fr_FR/index.php
More about France's fears that potatoes were poisonous.
Many European countries initially considered potatoes toxic as the leaves of potatoes, and its flowers are, in fact, dangerous to your health when eaten. N.B. Old potatoes that have turned green are also toxic. In the early 15th century, how to differentiate between potatoes leaves, and the potato itself was not well understood. Then, in France, along came a pharmacist called Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737 – 1813). Through Parmentier's promotion of potatoes, he saved tens of thousands of peasants from dying from starvation during the French crop failures in 1780. Today, any dish on a French menu with Parmentier in its name is a potato dish, and there are quite a few. Without Parmentier, we would also have no Aligot and no French Fries.
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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
Copyright 2010 2013, 2016, 2020
For information on the unpublished book behind this blog,
contact Bryan Newman.
at
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
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