Pendant mon séjour en Aveyron, j'ai mangé de l'aligot, la célèbre purée de pommes de terre et de fromage frais. Peter Mayle en parle dans un de ses livres, et j'attendais de le déguster depuis des années. Malheureusement, le restaurant où on l'a mangé n'était pas bon, et l'aligot non plus.
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| Aligot © LKL |
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| © LKL |
Au fait, ne confondez pas l'aligot et l'aligoté - celui-ci est un raisin et un vin blanc de Bourgogne.
Quelques recettes
- L'aligot, en plat de résistance (en français, d'un site dédié à l'Aveyron)
- Aligot recipe (en anglais, du site About.com French Cuisine)
- Purée (ma recette, en anglais)
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English translation Please scroll down for the side-by-side translation.
Aligot, a speciality of Aveyron
During my trip to Aveyron, I ate aligot, the famous purée of potatoes and fresh cheese. Peter Mayle talks about it in one of his books, and I'd been waiting to taste it for years. Unfortunately, the restaurant we ate it at was no good, and neither was the aligot.
I don't know if our restaurant used the traditional cheese, tomme, or if it followed a good recipe, but the aligot was nothing special. Mashed potatoes are one of my favorite dishes and this version wasn't even as good as mine - even when I don't add cheese. In addition, they made such a spectacle of stirring and lifting the aligot into the air for 10 minutes that when they finally served us, it was no longer hot.
Since people talk about aligot like it's out of this world, and since our other meals ranged from bland to disgusting, I'm sure that our aligot was not a typical example of this delicacy. I'm still waiting to try a good traditional recipe. I would have done it during this trip but we always ate at the same place. Yuck!
By the way, don't mix up l'aligot and l'aligoté - the latter is a grape and a white wine from Burgundy.
Some recipes
- L'aligot, en plat de résistance (in French, on a site dedicated to Aveyron)
- Aligot recipe (in English, from the About.com French Cuisine site)
- Mashed potatoes (my recipe, in English)
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Side-by-side translation
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Aligot, une spécialité aveyronnaise Pendant mon séjour en Aveyron, j'ai mangé de l'aligot, la célèbre purée de pommes de terre et de fromage frais. Peter Mayle en parle dans un de ses livres, et j'attendais de le déguster depuis des années. Malheureusement, le restaurant où on l'a mangé n'était pas bon, et l'aligot non plus. Je ne sais pas si notre restaurant a utilisé le fromage traditionnel, la tome, ou s'il a suivi une bonne recette, mais l'aligot n'avait rien de spécial. La purée est l'un de mes plats préférés et cette version n'était même pas aussi bonne que la mienne - même quand je n'y mets pas de fromage. En plus, ils ont fait tout un spectacle en remuant (mot du jour) et en levant l'aligot en l'air pendant 10 minutes, du coup quand ils nous l'ont enfin servi, il n'était plus chaud. Puisqu'on parle de l'aligot comme si c'était sensationnel, et puisque nos autres repas allaient de fades à dégoûtants, je suis sûre que notre aligot n'était pas un exemple typique de ce mets délicat. J'attends toujours de pouvoir déguster une bonne recette traditionnelle. Je l'aurais fait pendant ce voyage mais nous avons toujours mangé au même resto. Berk ! Au fait, ne confondez pas l'aligot et l'aligoté - celui-ci est un raisin et un vin blanc de Bourgogne. Quelques recettes
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Aligot, a speciality of Aveyron During my trip to Aveyron, I ate aligot, the famous purée of potatoes and fresh cheese. Peter Mayle talks about it in one of his books, and I'd been waiting to taste it for years. Unfortunately, the restaurant we ate it at was no good, and neither was the aligot. I don't know if our restaurant used the traditional cheese, tomme, or if it followed a good recipe, but the aligot was nothing special. Mashed potatoes are one of my favorite dishes and this version wasn't even as good as mine - even when I don't add cheese. In addition, they made such a spectacle of stirring and lifting the aligot into the air for 10 minutes that when they finally served us, it was no longer hot. Since people talk about aligot like it's out of this world, and since our other meals ranged from bland to disgusting, I'm sure that our aligot was not a typical example of this delicacy. I'm still waiting to try a good traditional recipe. I would have done it during this trip but we always ate at the same place. Yuck! By the way, don't mix up l'aligot and l'aligoté - the latter is a grape and a white wine from Burgundy. Some recipes
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I invite you to post comments related to this article below, but please post unrelated comments in the forum.
Comments
It’s possible that your aligot was entirely authentic. Most of us not born in this region regard aligot as tasteless and glue-like. But it still is an important component of the traditional outdoor summer meals for a village or quartier and so we must lack the sensitivities necessary to appreciate it. Compare pumpkin pie, which few non-Americans regard as special.
Je ne jamais entendu parler de cet ‘aligot’, donc au moins vous m’avez rendu curieux!
Merci, et meuilleur chance à la prochaine fois!
I have also been waiting to try this dish since reading about it in Mayle’s book. I see the frozen version in Picard and never buy it because I want to have the real thing fresh from the kitchen.
Maybe I should try the Picard version first!
J’aime fromage, mais je ne suis pas sure si j’aime la tome.
Alors, dans cette phrase suivie, qu’est ce qu’il veut dire l’expression “du coup”? Merci.
En plus, ils ont fait tout un spectacle en remuant (mot du jour) et en levant l’aligot en l’air pendant 10 minutes, du coup quand ils nous l’ont enfin servi, il n’était plus chaud.
Laura – I spent last year in Aurillac teaching English and there was a restaurant there who served a delicious version of Aligot. It’s my favorite thing to eat from back when I lived there (and also truffade). If you ever make it to Aurillac, there’s a restaurant called Le Bouchon Fromagere and it’s delicious there! It’s right next to one of the famous cheese markets. Soooo good! The recipe is supposed to be simple but I tried it once and it didn’t turn out near as good as this resto. (It MUST be made with Tome to get it right, but I’ve been told by French people that it’s also okay with other light cheeses.) I hear that to make it really good, you’ve gotta use bacon grease to give it flavor…but that wasn’t included in the recipe I used.
Laura – nice article – now I must look-up your attached recipies for cheese mashed potatoes i.e aligot. I always thought mine were pretty good – maybe I’ll learn something new for the day??
BTW – why would y’all continue to eat at a resto where you describe the food as BERK? Was this the only place in town?
walt
I first tried aligot over 25 years ago.
I was staying with a friend in Amboise whose parents were from Aubrac. His mother, wanting to serve something special, ordered very young tome cheese from a distributor near Laquiole. The secret to unbelievable aligot is the cheese which must be soft, almost liquid in consistency and not yet fully aged. It is this very moist cheese that is mixed with potatoes which produces a very remarkable result. That and the fact that the mixture is always blended in a uniform direction which maintains the longitudinal elements of the cheese within the mixture.
Headquarters for all things aligot is a restaurant in the small hamlet of Aubrac called Chez Germaine:
http://www.aubrac.com/tourisme/restaurants/les_restaurants.htm
Germaine died some year back but her restaurant lives on and to dine here is indeed a heavenly experience.
I have documented my experiences at Chez Germaine here:
http://lejeudeboules.com/2009/05/05/chez-germaine/
Laura… voici la recette de Supertoinette que j’emploi pour l’aligot. La première fois j’ai essuyé l’aligot était à la marche en Ganges. Il était délicieux. Cette recette est aussi bonne. Je préfère le beurre au lieu du saindoux. Aussi on peut substitue le Comte pour le Cantal, parce que c’est plus facile de le trouver aux Etats-Unis. Bonne chance.
Craig
http://www.supertoinette.com/recette/1081/aligot_de_to.html
wow!
NOw I am really shocked!!!
I am from Georgia, and in Western part of Georgia – in hig mountains of SVANETI we have 100% THE SAME traditional dish, mashed potatoes and fresh, just 1-2 days old cheese, it’s called SHUSHA and here it is:
http://img530.yfrog.com/img530/1391/25072007419kv0.jpg
It’s really delicious!
But obviously, it has to be eaten fast, while its hot, otherwise its not stretching any more and it has no such taste. But, anyway, even if it was just warm, it could be delicious, maybe not shocking. I guess, the guy used wrong cheese.
I could never imagine that my Georgian privince – Svaneti had something in common with France. Though I often find some sweet-soft vowels in Svanetian dialect