Savoyade Food

If you are a regular visitor to the Alps, you will already know that it is largely impossible to avoid cheese. Along with potatoes, dried hams and salami style sausages, it forms the traditional staple winter diet - all that fat and carbohydrate is just what you need to keep out the cold. In order to keep things as interesting as possible (?!) the locals have devised lots of different ways of serving cheese which normally revolves around creative ways of melting it, hence fondue, Raclette, Mont-d'Or etc.

The restaurants charge a huge premium for traditional Savoyarde dishes but you can make them yourself very easily for a lot less money and we've included some recipes here.
The best priced cheese is available from the local farmers' co-operative shop situated just to the side of the footbridge (Reberty side). It's a small wooden chalet-style hut open in the afternoons and evenings. If you can't see what you want in the window, just ask as they normally stock all the local varieties.

Local cheeses.

Beaufort (AOC). Cut from an enormous round, this is a hard cheese made from the milk from Tarantaise cows living in the high pastures throughout the summer (between 800 and 2,000 metres).

Tomme de Savoie. A traditional rustic, family cheese made in winter by many small farmsteads when the cows return to the stable from their summer pastures. There is also a variant made from goats' milk - Tomme de Chevre.

Compte (AOC). Made in the Jura from cows' milk. It takes 350 litres of milk to make a round of 35 kilos. Slightly softer than Beaufort.

Reblochon (AOC). Originally created by tenant farmers as an early French tax dodge. Landowners collected taxes in the form of milk so when the owner came to collect his tax they only half milked the cows, finishing the rest when he had left and keeping it for themselves to make cheese. Reblocher means 'second milking'. This is a soft cheese which is excellent for grilling - tastes better hot.

Abondance (AOC). Originates from the village of Abondance in Haute Savoie (near the Portes Du Soleil ski area). Made with the milk of a specific breed of Abondance cows which are very tough, spending summer in pastures above 2,000 metres.