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Scenes from the Aveyron Fair
By Ann | October 17, 2008
Last weekend CK and I went to la Foire Aveyronaise, held here in Paris in the 12th on rue d’Auvergne. As you may remember from my post on Le Mistral, most Parisian café-owners hail from Aveyron, a region of south-central France. Last weekend was a chance to gather in a celebration of the region, to taste local products (a blue cheese called bleu d’Auvergne and saucisson sec are the most famous), to sing folk-songs, watch traditional dances, and meet other Aveyronais (though if you are Aveyronais and live in Paris, chances are you already know each other).
Pictured about are farçous, a savory galette or pancake. The sign listed the ingredients as: flour, eggs, milk, sausage meat (which I couldn’t discern), parsley, garlic and spinach. They were the perfect street fair food — hot, savory, slightly crisp, and 2€.
Here’s a little map of France, which highlights Aveyron. It’s in a beautiful, mountainous region of France called the Midi-Pyrénées, and is still just a little bit undiscovered as it’s a bit hard to reach without a car.
Pictured above is fromage de Laguiole, a salty, sharp, hard cheese that’s similar to cheddar. We tasted three different versions (very young, aged 10 months, aged 18 months), and preferred the most mature.
You may know Laguiole for it’s famous knives, which were on offer at the fair.
This is tome fraîche, the soft, young, fresh cheese that’s used to make aligot, Averyon’s signature cheesy potato dish.
Here’s aligot in all it’s glory. Though boxes of prepared aligot were for sale at the fair, we didn’t try them. But, for the curious, here is a translation of a recipe for aligot; it comes from a special, gourmand edition of Aveyron magazine, which is completely dedicated to food! Sadly, for those of use who don’t live in Aveyron, the key to this dish really is the tome fraîche cheese. I’m not sure if it would be the same without it, but if you try the recipe with another kind of cheese (maybe mozzarella?), please let me know.
Aligot
Serves 4
1 kg (2.2 lbs) “bintje” potatoes (this appears to be a type of yellow-fleshed potato)
400 g (14 oz) tome fraîche cheese
200 g (7 oz) sour cream
1-2 cloves garlic
Salt and pepper
1. Peel the potatoes and the garlic cloves. Cut the potatoes into large pieces and cook in a pot of boiling water, with the garlic cloves, for 20 minutes.
2. During this time, cut the tome fraîche cheese into slivers. With the end of a spoon, remove the garlic, pass the potatoes through a food-mill, and add a spoonful or two of water to obtain the desired consistency. (*Note — it does not say to drain the potatoes, but I’m assuming you do this before the food-mill.)
3. Incorporate the sour cream and mix with a wooden spoon.
4. Make sure the purée is very hot and add the tome fraîche, stirring energetically. The aligot should run off the end of the spatula and form a ribbon.
5. Taste (stretch the mixture with the spatula). We can, if desired, add a whole clove of garlic.
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One Response to “Scenes from the Aveyron Fair”
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« Adventures in cheese-making | Home | Wednesdays are for food »
October 20th, 2008 at 7:50 am
Don’t forget your cooking scissors for the aligot. In its perfect state, aligot strands must be cut in mid-stretch in order to then wrap around your fork. Mmmmmm. As for Aveyron, it contains beautiful villages that seem straight from central casting (if the casting call were for idyllic French villages): Estaing, Entraygues, Mur de Barrez, and the pilgrimage town of Conques (on the route of St Jean de Compostella).