Pommes Aligot

A dish so phenomenal that if you've not heard of it, then prepare to have your mind blown.

The name of the village escapes me now.

We’d been driving through rural France for over two weeks, seeking out the little Bouchons that might serve us foie gras, duck confit or entrecôtes perfectly cooked ‘saignant’, visiting small market stalls manned by stout little old men wearing Bleu de travail, who’d likely devoted a lifetime of work to making dried sausages.

In Drôme, deep in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, you’ll find the place that invented Caillettes, a meatball type of affair that dates back to the 1600s. Ground pork, liver and leafy greens traditionally made by the villagers on the day of the slaughter of the village pig, bound together, wrapped in crepinette then baked. Perfect when scooped onto a baguette with a fistful of cornichons.

Nougat de Montélimar is from this region, a sticky mixture of local almonds, honey and flowers, still cooked for hours in copper cauldrons and hand-rolled on cold marble by Nougatiers.

Now there’s a job title.

The market square in the little village whose name escapes me, had many stalls that day. One table that was busy with a line of people snaking around the cobbles was under the supervision of a tall gentleman with a very striking moustache. It sat on his top lip like a pair of exotic caterpillars. De rigeur for this part of France I believe. He held what looked like a great wooden oar or paddle, and it appeared that he was beating and stretching a giant strand of something sticky from a pot that I couldn’t quite see, though the smell that was wafting around the village gave the game away. The smell of hot cheese intermingled with garlic, rolled invisibly around the entire square.

Joyous. (Photo credit to E)

Pommes Aligot. That decadent mixture of an ungodly ratio of potato, young acidic cheese and creme fraiche, a little garlic and plenty of salt. Beaten to within an inch of its life, then pulled to form great long strands of what can only be called ‘gloop’.

Famed around Aubrac, the recipe is ferociously laid claim to by three departments, Lozere, Aveyron and Occitaine for over five hundred years. Initially made with breadcrumbs by monks unwilling to waste excess sour curds from cheesemaking and then fed to the faithful on their pilgrimages to Compostela, and what with the French believing until nearly 1700 that potatoes were poisonous, so much so that a law was passed forbidding the eating of them in any form.

The cheese used in the prepration is up for much discussion. What is basically a young Laguiole, (an unfinished Tome similar in some ways to Cantal) neither salted or aged with no apparent use than for cutting into slices and beating through hot potato to form this magnificent silken artery clogger. Many disagree, and it is said Salers, Cantal or Tomme d’Auvergne work just as well. There are some who even suggest that the addition of mozzarella is useful for the stretch factor, but I wont be entertaining any mention of such heresy here. (For arguments sake, I shall keep to tradition and say that it is authentic to use a Tome d’Aubrac. In the recipe below I shall give substitutions).

It is said that in Japan, in their love of French cuisine and culture, the making and eating of Aligot is nigh on a religious experience. A practiced art in the same way that they mature whisky, nurture beef cattle and cut tuna. It’s easy to understand why.

It is something that you should make for a special occasion. It does not look pretty as such, though if a near equal quantity of silken potato to cheese, with the addition of creme fraiche, beaten fiercely to create a giant stretching strand of elastic is your thing, then it is spectacular. It must be eaten with sausages. It can be eaten with good beef as they do in Paris, but sausage is the farmer’s choice. The man in bugatti blue on the market stall told me that it was essential and who am I to argue..

That day on the market, half way through a three hundred kilometre drive, I bought two huge plastic tubs of monsieur’s Aligot from his market stall. He sealed the pots shut and our journey resumed, with me stretching it out with a wooden fork from the pot squeezed between my legs whilst driving. The second pot was wedged under the dashboard of the car to keep warm until later that day.

It beats a motorway sandwich any day.

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Pommes Aligot

There are many recipes for this dish. Here is mine.