If you enjoy the beauties of nature, the spell of the forest, and the quiet of the country, you'll probably love the Franche-Comté. It is one of the most verdant and peaceful of the French provinces. One is struck at once with the overwhelming greenness of everything. The pine forests loom deep bluegreen on the horizon. The fields glisten with a green that only Veronese could paint. But other colors intermingle in this rolling tapestry, especially in spring when the ground is successively carpeted with narcissises, crocuses, and multicolored anemones. These give way in summer to fragrant cyclamens, which happen to be the particular delight of the discriminating pigs of Franche-Comté. They devour every blossom they find. Small wonder that the charcuteries of this province have a haunting fragrance all their own!
Franche-Comté is composed of three départements, Doubs, Jura, and Haute-Saône, and of the territory of Belfort, which owes its unique status to its dauntless resistance in the Franco-Prussian War. The province is less traveled than many parts of France, which is a pity, for it repays the visitor richly in landscape, wine, and food. The Franche-Comté is called the Jura often as not, and the two names are used interchangeably. Whichever you use, the same picture of greenness, moisture, and fertility is brought to mind. The cities are not remarkable. They are quiet communities, each with an industrial specialty. Besançon has always been famous for its watches. The best briar pipes in France are made in Saint-Claude. Most of France’s combs are made in Oyonnax, and its spectacles in Morez.
As a foil to the incessant green, the landscape of the Jura is dotted with cattle, creamy-white cattle with large russet spots. It is often a fenceless landscape, and the cattle would roam at will, except for a small boy or girl with a slender rod and a faithful farm dog. The fanner of the Franche-Comté begins his career at a very tender age indeed. Watching the cows is work that even a first-grader can do, and he often has to bring his homework with him! Each cow has its musical bell, though, just in case some of them stray from their youthful herdsman.
The large number of cows means one thing in particular—cheese. This is the land of Gruyère cheese, and the people of the Jura were making it centuries before the Swiss were. The yield of the russet-and-white Jura cow is impressive, and so are the husky cartwheels of Gruyère which age in the caves. Over forty million pounds of cheese are produced annually in this one province. Such a huge industry calls for a well-planned cooperative effort, for the average farmer of the Jura rarely has more than a dozen cows. And it takes about 650 quarts of milk to make a single Gruyère cheese. Over twelve hundred cheese factories are scattered over the hills. Your local epicure doesn't like his cheese too full of holes. He knows that the richest, most flavorful cheeses are the compact ones. They make a better fondue, too. He is quite willing to ship the better ventilated cheese to Paris.
A delectable blue cheese, bearing a kinship to Roquefort and a fairly close resemblance to Bleu d'Auvergne, also comes from the Jura. In the past quarter-century another industry has cropped up—the preparation of Créme de Gruyère, that transportable and convenient processed cheese which has become known all over the world.
As you travel through these hills, you will perhaps observe husky farmers wrestling with stubborn, cactuslike plants and painfully prying out their roots with longhandled picks. It is a Herculean job but it is worth the effort, for when they finally wrench it from the earth, they have the gentian root, an aromatic substance which, distilled, forms the basis for many a liqueur and apéritif. Absinthe plants abound in these hills, also, and it is not surprising to learn that this is the home of Pernod. The principal fountainhead for this toned-down absinthe is Pontarlier, an anise-scented town almost on the Swiss border. Pernod may not have all the gastronomic virtues, but its place in the French cafe cannot be challenged!
A drought would be close to impossible in the Jura. It is a moist countryside bubbling with springs, sprayed with waterfalls, veined with winding rivers, and dotted with lakes. This conjures up the enticing picture of fresh-water fish in the mind of the visiting gastronome, and he is not disappointed. It means trout to him, and trout there is, in abundance. The banks of those lakes and streams must splash musically with frogs, and so they do. Frogs' legs are a subtle delicacy awaiting him in many a country inn. He has visions of a sublimated fish stew, not so outspoken as a bouillabaisse but filled with undertones of flavor—white wine, herbs, spices, small onions, and mushrooms. Call it a matelote, a pochouse, or a meurette, he doesn't mind. He knows it will have subtlety, savor, and seductiveness. Tench, carp, perch, eel, and pike will all contribute to his happiness. And there are a dozen dry white wines of the province to act as companions.
But the star of the show is still the little red crayfish, unimpressive in stature but incomparable in flavor. They serve him à la nage, hot or cold, or in a cream sauce. Sometimes they take the patience to remove enough crayfish tails for that incredible delicacy, gratin de queues d'écrevisses.
The lotte, a handsome fish, was once highly esteemed here, to judge by a provocative fragment of old verse:
Pour un foie de lotte
L'homme vend sa culotte
Une femme …
The rest is lost in conjecture, for the lotte has now disappeared from the local streams, along with his mysterious powers over women.
The thick forests of the Jura yield a varied measure in game, (rum red squirrel to wild boar, from which is made an admirable salmis. They marinate the boar patently in wine, oil, and spices before roasting him. The older the boar, the stronger the marinade, so goes the culinary rule of thumb.
But the forests produce nothing subtler than the beloved bécasse, all too little known to us as woodcock. So beguiling is the bouquet of this estimable bird that many a gourmet contends that it cannot be appreciated at an ordinary table. The true amateur of bécasse will therefore cover his head with a vast napkin, using it like a tent to cover his roast bird, his goblet of old Burgundy, and his olfactory nerves. The art of conversation may languish during that course, but proper respect will be paid the divine bird. Quite a mental picture is stirred up by this technique. Supposing, for example, you had a dinner party for twelve.
The forests hold other riches—a whole orchestra of wild mushrooms, fascinating things, to be selected by the experts only (for there are plenty of deadly poisonous ones), bearing such names as chanterelles, oronges, russules, and, of course, crèpes. But the fragrant, warted morille still stands at the head of the list, once you scrub out the last grain of sand. If there is any mushroom dish better than morilles à la crème, I have yet to taste it.
Cheese, fish, mushrooms—and wine, these are the gustatory resources of the Jura. A handsome strip of vineyards stretches southward from Arbois, producing a succession of unusual wines. It is a difficult slope to cultivate, far more so than Burgundy, and the patient vigneron more than earns his pittance. The familiar vin d'Arbois has a wide acceptance all over France. Its peculiar brownish-pink color resembles that of a certain onionskin, and it has long been nicknamed pelure d'oignon. It has a deceptive headiness, is inexpensive, and goes ideally with a simple meal. There are some good, straight white wines, Poligny, for example, and some vins de paille, pressed from individually picked grapes which are partially dried on straw and bottled after ten years in the cask. These are rarities, needless to say.
Franche-Comté's greatest unsung treasure, however, is the extraordinary vin jaune known as Château-Châlon. This wine has no counterpart in France. It is pressed from a mysterious grape now called Savagnin. Some critics contend that it springs from Tokay grapes and that it dates hack to the Crusades. Others say that it was imported from the Iberian peninsula back in the distant days when Franche-Comté was under Spanish dominion. It certainly has a taste reminiscent of a dry sherry and makes a perfectly marvelous aperitif. But it fits into a meal better than sherry, harmonizing handsomely with cheese, nuts, fruit, and a few fish dishes. Very dry, nutlike, and fragrant, its color is an extraordinary deep yellow. After spending seven years or more in small casks of red oak, this vin jaune is put up in a stubby, individual bottle all its own. Furthermore, it defies all the laws of age, due to its special vitrification, and its life can be counted in decades instead of years. Some bottles are centenarians, believe it or not. There isn't enough of this amazing wine to go around, so the wise people of the Jura keep most of it there for themselves. You will find some extraordinary years of it on hotel wine cards, and it is possible to pick up a bottle or a case of it in musty old wine shops in Arbois or Poligny. But the thirsty world outside doesn't know too much about it.
If you can arrange to be in Arbois on the first Sunday in September, a treat awaits you. This is the day of the annual wine festival, when an immense two-hundred-pound “bunch” of grapes, composed of countless smaller bunches, is carried in honor through the streets to the church. This year, as a special feature, the “Free Commune of Arbois” issued an invitation to its “Sister Commune” of Montmartre, making a particularly tempting offer: that its fellow members could drink as much wine as they warned for a full hour, for a fee of only a hundred francs, or twenty-eight cents. The Parisians of Montmartre accepted with joy, and it was fortunate that the good citizens of Arbois had thought well ahead and arranged for ambulances and trained nurses to be on hand.
Finally, Franche-Comté is bountifully blessed with poultry, hence eggs. The local lore has it that eggs “font chanter clair et rendent amoureux”—make one sing clearly and make one amorous—not a new idea by any means, or a proved one. However, there is no doubt that they should be eaten fresh. There is a precise moment of freshness for every delicacy, according to an old Franche-Comté proverb, which takes quite a sudden tangent, from hours to days to years, from eggs to lovers:
Oeuf d'une heure
Pain d'un jour
Vin d'un an
Poissons de deux
Maîtresse de quinze
Amant de trente
The high road to Switzerland passes through Franche-Comté, and it is spoiled with several good country hotels to hearten the traveler. They are not palatial establishments, but they are clean, comfortable, and reasonably priced. And their standard of cooking, if not so lofty as that found in the Bresse or the Lyonnais, is still exceptional.
Dôle (Jura)
The birthplace of Pasteur and the capital of the Jura is a busy city of considerable charm. Being a natural stopover on the highway from Paris to Switzerland, the competition among the hotels of Dôle, or at least among the hotel billboards, is keen. The winner seems to be the HÔTEL CHANDIOUX, one of the few hotels in this chapter which can claim the virtue of cushioned comfort, as the guidebooks express it. The rooms, which have recently been redecorated, are spotless and inviting. The dining room is a bit formal, the service is deft, and the cooking is on the more elaborate scale, with prices (and taxes, alas!) correspondingly higher. Crayfish, trout, and chicken are well presented in more ambitious formulae, together with some bottles of the finer wines from Arbois, Pupillin, and Château-Châlon.
Arbois (Jura)
You will pass through dozens of French towns before finding one which has exactly the atmosphere and the inviting charm to make you slam on the brakes and say. “This is the place I've been looking for!”
Arbois, we feel, is just such a locality. Surrounded by vineyards, straddling the little river Cuisance, it is one of those irresistible provincial towns which seem to sum up all of the French virtues and very few of their drawbacks. Gabriel Chevalier might have had it in mind when he wrote his ribald classic, Clochemerle. It is the perfect French country town. Luckily, Arbois boasts a hotel in keeping with its charm, the hospitable HÔTEL MESSAGERIES. The atmosphere, the friendliness, the comfort, and the cooking of this civilized auberge were indefinably but precisely right. The Molliet family are gracious, experienced hôteliers, and the skill of their chef is abundantly evident, especially when he prepares chicken in the yellow wine of Château-Châlon and rich cream! Its full name is poularde de Bresse au vin jaune et à la créme, just so you won't possibly miss it.
Poligny (Jura)
This is a pleasant valley town on the road to Switzerland known for its excellent white wines. One hotel here is plentifully plastered with disks of recommendations from gourmet societies and automobile and touring clubs. These are not always sure badges of excellence, but in the case of the HÔTEL DE PARIS they are well bestowed. Monsieur Biétry is a most capable host, and some of his specialties are still embossed in our memory, particularly mountain ham cooked in the fragrant yellow wine of the Jura.
Champagnole (Jura)
If four members of the Club des Cent, the exclusive French gourmet society limited to a hundred members, happened to be motoring along Route National No. 5, I would be willing to wager a basket of truffles that they would stop for the night or at least for luncheon at the GRAND HÔTEL RIPOTOT in the attractive mountain town of Champagnole. Monsieur Ripotot and his family have built up a formidable reputation among the epicurean elite, and they maintain that reputation by keeping a relentless eye on the high quality of their fare. The personal touch is here—the intent scrutiny of every plate as it passes through the kitchen trap door, the unfeigned solicitude for the guest's wellbeing, the serious discussion about the appropriate wine. The hotel is large and comfortable, very reminiscent of the resort hotels in Switzerland, and it should be a charming place for a protracted stay in summer. Gastonomically, it appears to be the best bet in the Franche-Comté.
Lons-le-Saunier (Jura)
This busy town is worth a visit, if only for the HÔTEL CHEVAL ROUGE, an informal country inn with commendable Franche-Comté food. You can't miss the Red Horse Inn. Its architecture is bizarre, and its crimson paint is almost blatant. But it is food we're after, and Monsieur Martinet can provide it. He is a master at preparing regional dishes and was once the Jura guest chef at Maxim's in Paris during one of their regional weeks. We tried his pike quenelles and truffled pigeons, accompanied by a fresh, clean vin de l'Etoile, with happy results. Prices are very reasonable.
Saint-Amour (Jura)
There are two choices for luncheon in this little town, and the toss of a coin brought us to the HÔTEL ALLIANCE, an intriguing caravansary installed in an ancient monastery. The fine, vaulted dining hall dates from the seventeenth century and serves as a worthy selling for the delectable dishes supervised by Monsieur Dares. Among these were a noble pâté en croûte, truite meunière, poularde de Bresse, and a bedazzling soufflé.
Morez (Jura)
You are almost on the Swiss frontier when you draw up to this busy CENTRAL MODERN HÔTEL in Morez. It has an international atmosphere, and many languages crackle in its country-style dining room. Your host is Monsieur Mauvais, a gentleman who belies his name, and your chef is Monsieur Benôit-Guyot, who has presided at this kitchen for thirty-five years. Between them, they contrive to give you a very acceptable meal.
Saint-Hippolyte-sur-le-Doubs (Doubs)
This is an engaging village, picturesquely set at the fork of two mountain streams and not far from the Swiss frontier. In a favored spot on the riverbank is the HÔTEL DU DOUBS, a true citadel of Franche-Comté cooking. Here are the legendary trout of the Doubs, the mountain hams with the overtones, real or fancied, of cyclamen, and those incomparable waited mushrooms, morilles, from the forest, all prepared in the Jura tradition. A rare local cheese, Concaillote, adds further to the novelty of the fare. Madame Guénat is a gifted Cordon Bleu. You have only to taste her sublime croûte aux morilles to be convinced of the fact.
Maiche (Doubs)
This town, in the same verdant neighborhood, provides a worthy stopover for the food-conscious traveler. This is the HÔTEL LION D'OR, a well-scrubbed hostelry whose cellar is stocked with a treasury of Jura wines. The food is very good, but that cellar, rejoicing in fine years of Château-Châlon and varied vins de paille, is even better.
Mouthier (Doubs)
In this ancient village, set in an amphitheater of rocky cliffs, you will find an exceptional country inn, the HÔTEL DU MANOIR. The name is fitting, for you are received in an authentic fifteenth-century manor house whose garden and terrace overlook the picturesque valley of the Loue. It is a charming summer spot, and the cuisine is as good as the scenery. Trout with grilled almonds, chicken with truffles, morilles in crust, these are some of the happy marriages proposed in the carte du jour.
Luxeuil-les-Bains (Haute-Saône)
This is a pleasant, spa type of town, with a casino and a pavilion where, if you choose, you can take a cure and drink all that water. The hotels of the town are considerate of those pilgrims who are on a diet, but they also keep in mind the visiting voluptuary. The latter specimen receives particularly good treatment at the HÔTEL LION VERT, a comfortable place near the casino. Here is good regional cooking—trout, crayfish, and chicken playing stellar roles—at sensible prices. Monsieur Grille recommends his poulet archiduc, and with good reason. It is a magnificent dish. After lunch, a stroll will reveal several fine old houses and an ancient cloister in Luxeuil.
Champlitte (Haute-Saône)
Facing the old chateau in this little town is the AUBERGE FRANC-COMTOISE, a pleasant inn which has earned a fine reputation throughout the countryside due to the cordiality and the culinary gifts of Monsieur Perny. His regional specialties are familiar and toothsome—quenelles de brochet, truite meunière, escargots—but he has a croûte aux champignons which is his own personal triumph. In his cave are some fine Burgundies, in additon to a charming vin du pays. Prices are very fair, indeed.
Giromagny (Belfort)
The city of Belfort may leave you a trifle disillusioned, on the score of both architectural beauty and culinary charm. The somewhat larger Territory of Belfort, however, claims a true gastronomic shrine, one which is a magnet for all the region's epicures. This is the charming PARADIS DES LOUPS in the town of Giromagny, about seven miles north of Belfort. This wolves' paradise has none of the connotations of American slang to recommend it, but you can call its food superb and still be guilty of understatement. During the spring and summer months, its charming little garden welcomes you, and Monsieur Guay offers a series of exquisite specialties, along with some pleasant local wines. The stipend connected with a paradisiacal luncheon is a bit above the average, and well worth it.
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.
The next time you have the good fortune to obtain some wild duck, roast them according to your taste and serve them accompanied by the following interesting sauce:
Sauce Infernale
Mash 2 duck livers to a paste and mix it with 2 teaspoons each finely chopped parsley, grated lemon peel, the yellow part only, and chopped shallot. Take the juices from the roasting pan and add 1 1/2 cups good red wine, a little salt, 2 teaspoons mild French mustard, and 2 teaspoons lemon juice. Mix and heat the ingredients together and serve with the duck.
A chicken pie to end all chicken pies!
Le Coq en Pâte Franc-Comtoise (Chicken Pie à la Franche-Comté)
Roast a small or medium chicken in a casserole in the oven accompanied by its giblets, salt and pepper, a pinch each of nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon, 1 carrot, sliced, 2 onions, and 2 tablespoons butter. This will take about 1 1/2 hours, more or less, depending on the size of the chicken.
Meanwhile, prepare a pair of sweetbreads which have been soaked in very cold water, parboiled for a few minutes, and cleaned of all skin and hard tubes. Braise these gently in a little of the water in which they were boiled until they are firm. Slice and add to them 1/4 pound mushrooms which have been washed, cut into pieces, and cooked for a few minutes in butter with the juice of 1/2 lemon. One-half cup diced cooked ham goes in next.
To this mixture add this sauce: After removing the chicken and its accompaniments from the casserole, stir into the remaining juices 1 liqueur glass of brandy, 1 liqueur glass of port, 2 cups heavy cream, and salt, if necessary. Cut the chicken into serving pieces and place in a deep baking dish. Over this pour the sweetbread-mushroom-ham-and-sauce mixture which has been simmered for 3 or 4 minutes and blended with 1 tablespoon purée de foie gras. Over all place a cover of flaky pastry and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until the crust is a rich golden-brown.