After a not-that-fun jaunt through Brittany (apparently we missed everything good except Mont St. Michele, about which Nic insists he will write a post, probably titled Hot Pics) and a few days in Dordogne (go there, it’s wonderful), we have arrived in Auvergne. Auvergne is one of the 27 regions of France, in the sort of lower middle. Also, I think it is my favorite.
Presented of course with comments are the reasons why:
I’m sure you think you’ve been to beautiful places. The Oregon coast! Italy! Flerp! You’re wrong. This is as good as it gets on planet Earth. Everywhere looks like the Shire!
The ruins of Apchon Chateau in the village of Apchon. Built sometime in the 11th century, it’s been abandoned since the mid-1700s, though according to a badly translated history I read online, it was active in a conflict roughly every 3 months in the intervening 700 years.
Here we are at the top of Puy Mary, one of the highest peaks of the Cantal Mountains. You drive up and then walk up a VERTICAL, UNPROTECTED, OPEN SLOPE for 1000 feet to get to the summit. I’m not *super* good with heights, so on the way up I used the word “barfy” perhaps a dozen times while grumbling at the 8 year olds sprinting up the slope without a care like god damned mountain goats.
Here I am, trying and failing to make it work in a hat again. You can tell from my face that I know the truth.
Ok. Finally. In Auvergne, they have a local specialty, called truffade. There are many ways to make it, but this picture is of the way that a particular restaurant, La Grange Aux Fleurs in the village of Sarran, made it when I had the best dinner I’ve had in France, both trips included. It’s potatoes fried in duck fat until golden and crisp, then a large amount of local Cantal cheese – Cantal is the aged and pressed version with a stronger taste, Tomme is a fresher first pressing of the same cheese also used in truffade – is melted in the pan and folded into the potatoes. The whole lot is topped with a little persillade, which is chopped garlic and parsley. It is made “at will” or to order, so you eat it ripping hot when the cheese is melty and the potatoes are crisp and tender. GOOD GRAVY IT IS SO GOOD. Cantal cheese, by the way, is so famous that apparently both Pliny the Elder and Gregory of Tours wrote about it. That is a famous cheese.
Working title of next post: I See Kale in French Gardens, But Not On Any Menus, What is That About
– C