Savoie food: fondue, raclette and tartiflette

White wine and garlic are heated in a caquelon, then grated cheeses added gradually, sometimes with kirsch and starch to prevent splitting. The pot sits over a burner at the table's centre. Spear bread with a long fork and dip, stirring in a figure of eight.

Customs:

• dropping bread means, jokingly, buying wine for the table or singing;

• the crust at the bottom, la religieuse, is shared at the end;
• potatoes, charcuterie and salad are sometimes served alongside.

Beaufort, Comté and Savoie Emmental are usually used equally, but every family has its proportions.

The name comes from racler, “to scrape”. Traditionally half a cheese wheel is placed by a fire and its melted top layer scraped with a knife onto plates. Homes and many restaurants use electric machines and individual little pans.

It comes with skin-on potatoes, dry-cured ham and sausages, gherkins and pickled onions, a dish for a group and a long evening.

The newest of the three was created in the 1980s to promote Reblochon, based on péla, an older mountain potato-and-onion dish. Cooked potatoes, fried onions and lardons, sometimes cream and white wine, go beneath a whole Reblochon cut in half, rind upwards. Bake until the cheese melts.

It makes a full meal, served with green salad.

• Croziflette: tartiflette made with crozets, small square buckwheat or wheat pasta.

• Diots au vin blanc: pork sausages stewed with onion and white wine, served with polenta or crozets.
• Croûte au fromage: bread soaked in white wine, topped with ham and cheese and baked.
• Polenta and caïon: mountain accompaniments.
• Lake fish: féra whitefish and Arctic char from Annecy and Geneva lakes.
• Brioche de Saint-Genix: enriched bread with pink pralines.
• Biscuit de Savoie: very light sponge cake.

Read more in “French Cheeses”.

Fresh, mountain-acid Savoie whites cut through fatty cheese. Tannic reds pair poorly with fondue.

About water: locals say cold water “turns cheese to stone” in the stomach. Science debates it, but people drink white wine or hot tea.

• Ski resorts: fondue and raclette everywhere, with variable quality.

• Annecy, Chambéry, Aix-les-Bains: Savoyard restaurants in old-town centres.
• Mountain farms and alpages, summer pastures: eat with cheesemakers in summer.
• Fondue and raclette are for two or more: restaurants generally set a two-person minimum.

• Fondue: equal Beaufort, Comté and Emmental, dry white wine, garlic, optional kirsch and day-old bread.

• Tartiflette: one whole AOP Reblochon for four.
• Raclette: sliced Raclette cheese and boiled skin-on potatoes.
• Use the same wine you serve at the table.

Savoie was a poor mountain region with six snowy months each winter. Summer herds went to high pastures and milk became large cheeses lasting until spring. Winter meals used stored potatoes, cheese, smoked meat, dried mushrooms and bread. Simple, hearty cheese dishes warmed people after work in the cold.

Until 1860 Savoie belonged to the Kingdom of Sardinia, sharing polenta, fondue and risotto with Piedmont and Switzerland. The 1960s–1980s ski boom made fondue and raclette famous worldwide, but local food extends much further.

• Diots: pork sausages, sometimes with cabbage or beetroot, stewed in white wine and onion.

• Pormonier: sausage with greens and vegetables.
• Savoie dry-cured ham: thinly sliced for raclette.
• Beaufort sausages: a modern market variation.
• Beef and veal from mountain pastures, with local-wine sauces.

Savoie is more than cheese. Desserts include:

• Biscuit de Savoie, a light sponge supposedly created in the 14th century for the count's banquet;

• blueberry tarts in summer mountain berry season;
• Saint-Genix brioche with pink pralines;
• Alpine meadow honey and génépi, a bitter mountain-wormwood liqueur served as a digestif.

Use these guide amounts at home or in restaurants:

These are filling dishes: serve only green salad alongside and a light dessert, sorbet or fruit.

Vines grow on slopes and lakesides at 250–500 metres. Almost all the wine is drunk locally and at ski resorts, making it scarce abroad. Main grapes:

• Jacquère: principal white, light, citrus and minerality, in Apremont, Chignin and Abymes;

• Altesse: aromatic white, honey and almonds, Roussette de Savoie appellation;
• Roussanne: called Bergeron in Chignin, fuller and softer;
• Mondeuse: local red, spicy, pepper and violet;
• Gamay and Pinot Noir: light reds.

Producer prices are €8–25 a bottle, among France's most affordable interesting wines.

Farms and cooking schools in Annecy and resorts offer workshops from dairy to finished fondue. Summer visits can follow shepherds to alpages; winter brings chef-led tartiflette. For families, it is often the trip's strongest memory.

Summer means green pastures, lakes and walking: less fondue, more lake whitefish and char in lemon butter, Beaufort-and-walnut salads and blueberry tarts. Buy cheese at farms directly from those who made it that morning, the best Alpine souvenir.

Almost every valley has its dishes:

• Aravis, Thônes, La Clusaz, Le Grand-Bornand: Reblochon country and the best tartiflette.

• Beaufortain: Beaufort and croûte au fromage.
• Chablais by Lake Geneva: Abondance cheese and lake fish.
• Maurienne and Tarentaise: crozets and polenta.
• Chambéry: chocolate truffles, invented here according to one account, and Biscuit de Savoie.

Winter for fireside fondue and raclette; summer for dairies and alpages. From mid-June to mid-September, herds graze high up and some chalets can be reached on foot to watch morning Beaufort production. October désalpes celebrate the herds' descent: flower-and-bell-decorated cows walk through villages with markets, music and cheese, among the Alps' liveliest events.

Good signs are a short menu, local cheeses naming producers, Savoie wines and owners who explain where the cheese comes from. Small restaurants by lifts are often run by nearby village families and may serve the resort's best tartiflette.

Cheeses, Beaufort, Abondance and Reblochon in a cool bag, wines, Jacquère, Altesse and Mondeuse rare elsewhere, génépi, diots, dry-cured ham, mountain honey and crozets for homemade croziflette. Every town sells fondue sets, pot, burner and forks; buy one here with cheese and white Apremont if you enjoyed it.

Spear bread through its crust so it stays on the fork. Stir in a figure of eight to prevent sticking. Do not lick the fork or double-dip. Drink white wine or tea rather than cold water. Dropped bread earns a table-decided “penalty”, usually buying a bottle. Dinner often ends with génépi or kirsch “for digestion”.

1. Tannic red with fondue. White is better.
2. Replacing Reblochon with another soft cheese. It will not be tartiflette.
3. Ordering fondue for one. Two is usually the minimum.
4. Eating fondue in summer heat. Choose farm raclette or lake fish instead.
5. Missing local wines. They are rarely exported.

Beaufort and Reblochon dairies, fondue and tartiflette workshops with a local chef, Jacquère, Altesse and Mondeuse at wineries, and Lake Annecy. → Savoie food and wine tour · French cheeses