It's cheese with everything in the Haute Savoie, writes Hugo Arnold
In the Haute Savoie, the Mediterranean diet doesn't get much of a look-in. Having spent a week in this mountainous region, our diet was firmly on the wrong side of healthy. Great slabs of cheese were everywhere, along with enough cured meat to satisfy the biggest carnivore. In the little town of Samoens, my favourite shop had large baskets of charcuterie inside the front door, followed by cheese, followed by more cheese.
Still, across the road was a vegetable shop full of winter leaves including lambs lettuce and dandelion. The dandelion a welcome bitter note in our salads. Chicory was piled high and featured on menus both as a salad and a cooked vegetable. If you thought we had a hold on the potato market, this region would put us to shame. The local market had a stall with varieties including Ratte, Anya, and a purple-skinned nobbly offering which the vendor claimed not to know the name of. We cooked them up that night along with some lamb chops grilled over the open fire. They kept their purple colouring and had a delightful waxy texture.
This is the land of fondue, and despite its somewhat naff 1970s connotations it is a social way of eating. Having been outdoors for hours, there was great comfort to be had from dipping bread in molten cheese, washed down with some of the local wines.
Tartiflette, a rich combination of potatoes, creme fraiche, bacon and cheese was sold everywhere. It is the perfect cold-weather food - rich, warming, satisfying and plentiful. The market had two stalls offering platefuls from giant paella-style pans.
We were in a chalet with two other families and had opted for self-catering, yet given the French approach to food, this only ever seemed to require cooking one course. One night we would have pâté, the next cured meats; after that came a bowl of crudites with a quickly whisked up aioli. Another night one of our friends put two bunches of radishes, a slab of butter, some bread and salt on the table. This was generally judged to be culinary minimalism taken to a superb level. We ate a lot of meat, most of it grilled or roasted, and alternated cheese and salad one night with pastries the next.
It was all incredibly easy, sensible and pretty effortless cooking. And the most wonderful thing of all was the shopping. Picture the scene; you finish your day, wrap up to go home, and en route pick up a loaf of bread and a few of the ingredients required for your supper. The whole village stayed open until 7.30pm or even 8pm. Then we would retire to the village bar for a refreshing glass, and head home. We may have been on holiday, but supper was on the table by 8.30pm every night and we still managed to be in bed by 11pm. Civilised living.