Once of the advantages of having a home in the Mountains ( ours is in the Haute Savoie, not so far from Mont Blanc) is the amazing Savoyard food, the cheeses, the ham, the charcuterie, the cream, the potatoes and oh yes more cream and butter! On the other hand, the disadvantages are also huge, the cheeses, the ham, the charcuterie, the cream, the potatoes and yes more cream and butter! What makes the food wonderful is also its deterrent. Morzine/Les Gets both on the Route des Grandes Alps, have their fair share of local restaurants but nearly all of them specialise in the local food which is labeled Savoyard. Hence, going out to eat usually means eating the local fare. To be fair, they, the restaurants are not catering to the likes of me, on the whole they cater to the tourists, the skiers in winter, the hikers and mountain bikers in the summer. Consequently, when we are in the mountains, we don’t eat out very much.

Having said that, in Les Gets, there is a good restaurant, called L’Outa, which on first sight one can be forgiven in thinking that it is a rather nice antique shop. Madame who runs this establishment with her husband is fun! We telephoned one day to make a reservation and we’re told to call in the morning as she hadn’t decided if she was going to be open or not! Another time she complemented a French friend on her excellent French ! And her food is not the local fare! Another, supposedly up market restaurant, we visited one Christmas. The waitress declared that the chef had been shucking oysters all day! We couldn’t resist! We got 2 each ! And the rest of the meal, although not Savoyard, was less memorable!

In our little hamlet, we too have one, just one bar/ café. Over the years, it has become smarter and better food, in fact her hamburgers are really good as is her Steak tartare. Of course there are Savoyard items on the menu, but not exclusively so.

So what are the specialities of the region.

• Tartiflette which is made from Potatoes, Reblochon cheese, bacon or ham, onions , butter and cream.
• Farce or Farcement Savoyard, is a cake made from Potatoes, cream and bacon, NO cheese, but of course it could be added as well.
• Croziflette, which is a bit like Tartiflette but made with the little local pasta
• Diots are the local sausages
• Raclette, which is melted cheese and usually served with local charcuterie
• Croute Savoyarde is the areas answer to Cheese on toast or Croque Monsieur or Croque Madame
• French onion soup, not necessarily from this region except, the soup is topped with toasted bread smothered in one of the local cheeses
• Tarte d’Abondance. This really is my favourite, it is a cheese tart.
• There are 8 cheese from this region and all have a PDO, which means they have a Protected Designation of Origin. They are Abondance, Beaufort, Chevrotin, Emmental, Raclette, Reblochon, Tome and Tomme. They are all made from one of two types of cow, Abondance and Tarentaise.

A visit to any of the local markets will give you a good overview of all the cheeses and charcuterie available throughout the region.

For some reason the other day, I decided to make Tartiflette. It is a firm favourite for Himself and also for his skiing buddy who comes every January.

To make enough for 4/6 people :-

• 1.5 kilos of potatoes scrubbed but they don’t need peeling
• 3-4 oz unsalted butter
• 8 oz bacon cut into chunks or lardons, smoked or not
• 2 white onions roughly chopped
• At least 4 cloves garlic mushed
• About 12 oz Reblochon Cheese. I actually didn’t have any Reblochon tucked away in the freezer, so I used what I had, a combination of Pont l’eveque , Tunworth ( an English Camembert type) Emmental . Not traditional, I know but it worked.
• 100 cl of creme fraich or cream
• Salt and pepper.

Simply boil the potatoes until soft, I as usual cook them in the microwave. When cool, slice them into rounds about 1/4” thick.

Melt the butter and sauté the potatoes , until a golden colour, put to one side and then sauté the lardons, until they are crispy, add the onions and garlic and again sauté, but don’t let the onions brown, just get them soft.

Layer the potatoes, lardons/ onion/garlic in an ovenproof rectangular casserole ( in France one can buy special dishes for Tartiflette) along with some of the cheese.

Pour the cream over the mixture and top with the remaining cheese.

Bake at 180 C ( fan) 425/ Gas 7 for about 15 minutes, it should be bubbling. Serve at once along with maybe a green salad.

Left overs? I’m kidding, but if there are, refrigerate or freeze. Reheat very quickly in a microwave.

Enjoy ! We certainly did !

The family have had a love affair with pancakes, since I can’t remember when. Himself is the pancake King. He made them at weekends for our own kids, where mostly the youngest and the middle child had competitions as to how many they could eat. Nowadays he makes them for grandchildren, in two groups, the big kids and the little kids, but whenever they come to stay, it is expected that he makes pancakes for breakfast.

A few years ago, my daughters and I, were in Chicago for the marathon, above said middle child has run many marathons and so we were there as the support team. There were always two items that were a MUST for marathon running, the best Hamburger afterwards and pancakes the following morning. We had an Excellent Air BnB right next to a Ralph Lauren restaurant which made the most amazing hamburgers. And true to form we found the best Pancake house in Chicago! We had to wait for maybe an hour but when needs must !

As I am sure you are aware,there are many many forms of Pancakes, the word pancake being a generic word ( for us anglophones) which covers a myriad of different types of pancakes. In the UK it generates at least 450,000 monthly searches for a recipe, and not only that there are at least Seven pages of recipes on the BBC website for pancakes.

So as you can imagine there are numerous types and recipes. Here is a brief synopsis. English pancakes, flat thin, usually eaten with lemon juice and sugar, but can be eaten with almost anything ranging from yogurt to Nutella, to bacon and scrambled egg. American, thick and stacked and definitely with additions, bacon, sausage, egg, maple syrup, fruit, cream yogurt and more. The Scotts have Drop Scones, and the Welsh have Pikelets, whereas Eastern Europe have Blini, which should be made with Buckwheat flour ( Sarrasin). The French have Crêpe which they flatten out in their pan with a rateau en bois and they have Crêpes Salée, or in Brittany it is a Galette, a savoury pancake made again with Buckwheat flour! You don’t have to have a Crêpe pan, but it really does make a difference. It is best not to wash your crepe pan, at best wipe it our with paper towel straight away after using, at worse whilst still very hot just water and wiped dry immediately.

We were away recently, just for a few days, so once again, being of the school of “Waste Not, Want Not” I wondered how to use up the odds of food that were in the refrigerator. I decided to make Galettes Soubises which are pancakes made with Buckwheat or Sarrasin flour ( which by the way is Gluten free ). The recipe I found used a combined plain flour and Sarrasin, which I found to be an odd choice. However, I do happen to have a box of Sarrasin flour ( from France) and there is no mention of mixing it with plain flour.

Ingredients :-

• 330 grams of Buckwheat flour
• A pinch of salt
• 75 CL of ice cold water

Put the flour and salt in a bowl, and carefully pour in the ice cold water, stirring constantly, to make a smooth mixture.

Leave the batter to stand for 2-3 hours. Heat the Crêpe pan until very hot, grease with either a spray or with butter. Pour in some of the batter, but remember Galette are thin. If the mixture is too thick carefully add some extra water. When the edges of the pancake begin to brown, using a spatula flip the pancake over. ( if you are confident, you can try flipping. Quickly cook side two, remove with a spatula and place on a plate. Repeat until all the mixture has been used. They can be staked and stored until ready to use.

For the filling, well savoury, something as simple as cheese and ham, ( using grated Emmental) sautéed mushrooms, or as I did a mixture of sautéed onions, bacon bits ( lardons), garlic, parsley, and then topped with grated Emmental cheese and fried eggs! A meal in itself, or maybe add a green salad!