Your Franche-Comté cook is fussy about details. She holds to the precise formula of her recipes. She is very particular about the water which goes in her classic pot-au-feu. Water from the fountain it must be, never from the well. When she makes a soupe au fromage, she cuts the Gruyère in paper-thin slices and would never alter its taste by grating it. She serves her asparagus lukewarm, with a faint grating of nutmeg. Her favorite local dish, strangely enough, is made from corn meal, a commodity scorned in many provinces. Immense quantities of yellow corn are hung up to dry under the broad eaves of Jura farmhouses. Much of it goes to the chickens, but some is diverted to corn meal, thence to a mushlike dish, and often to a flat corn cake known as gaudes, an invariable local dish and immensely popular.
We don't intend to give any corn recipes here since the treasury of Franche-Comté recipes is rich in other subjects.
Soups of strong individuality are found in the Franche-Comté. The soupe an fromage resembles an onion soup but, as the name indicates, the Gruyère cheese becomes more important than the onions. The cheese is cut in long, thin strips and placed between layers of toasted French bread. The onion soup is poured over these layers, and everything is steeped for a few minutes, with the cover on, before serving. The soupe aux grenouilles contains frogs' legs simmered with carrots, turnips, leeks, and parsnips until a clear golden consomme is obtained. It rivals the finest chicken broth. But the most curious of all is the soupe aux cerises, whose aromatic character is so pronounced that any dish following it must be highly seasoned and flavorful to hold its own:
Soupe aux Cerises (Cherry Soup)
Melt 1 1/2 tablespoons butter in a pot and blend in 1 1/2 tablespoons flour without browning it. Now add 1 1/2 quarts warm water, 3 cups fresh cherries with pits removed, 3/4 cup sugar (the amount of sugar varies with the tartness of the cherries), and 3 to 4 tablespoons kirsch. Bring to a boil and when the cherries are cooked and the soup still bubbling, pour it into a tureen over crusts of French bread fried in butter.
There is a hamlet in the Jura called Foncine-le-Bas where a talented cook by the name of Monsieur Jantet has gained wide fame for his method of preparing trout in the brownish-pink wine of Arbois. We haven't visited Monsieur Jantet's HÔTEL DE LA TRUITE, but some day we're going to. just to taste his specialty. His recipe sounds that good.
Truite an Vin d'Arbois (Trout in Arbois Wine)
Put 3 handsome trout, weighing from 3/4 pound to 1 pound each, in a buttered baking dish. Moisten them with 3 cups rosé wine, add 3 or 4 shallots, finely chopped, and cover with a buttered paper. Poach them in a slow oven (300° F.) for about 20 minutes, or until the fish is cooked but still firm. Lay the trout on a dry cloth and carefully remove the skin.
Meanwhile, reduce the liquid in another saucepan until there remains only a small amount of slightly thickened sauce. Cool it a little, strain, and add to it about 3/4 cup thick hollandaise sauce and 1 1/2 tablespoons cream. Stir in a pinch of pepper and pour the sauce over the fish, which have been placed on a warm, not hot, platter. Serve surrounded by triangles of bread fried in butter and sprinkled with chopped parsley.
The fondue belongs as much to the cheese-producing Jura as to Switzerland. In both countries it is often eaten as a communal dish kept warm by a spirit lamp on the table. Into this tempting bowl each guest dips his crusts of French bread. There is a school of culinary thought which incorporates eggs with the cheese, and there is the sans-egg school. The following is one accepted method of making the fondue jurassienne:
Fondue Jurassienne (Fondue of the Jura)
In an earthen casserole cook 1 1/2 cups dry white wine with 2 small cloves of garlic, chopped, until the wine has reduced a little in quantity. Strain it off to remove the pieces of garlic and set it aside. Melt in a casserole 3/4 pound Gruyère cheese, cut in small, thin pieces. with a generous 1/3 cup milk. Stir this over a slow fire continually until it creams, adding a little salt and pepper, the reserved white wine, and 1 1/2 tablespoons kirsch. Add a good lump of fresh butter and serve at once with crusty French bread or toast.
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