Kitchen with butter or olive oil? Culinary trip to the Southern Alps

Are you butter or olive oil? More than a question of affinities, it is a matter of national geography! “On the one hand, France of abundant grass; On the other, that with more arid lands ”, sums up Jean-Robert Pitte, geographer and historian of gastronomy. To understand where this border is established, I go looking for it in the Alps, with Pablo Chignard. This photo-reporter is an ace of the steering wheel in the mountains.

Because our route is inspired by the old hawkers. Ours leads us on a small winding road above Briançon (Hautes-Alpes), to the Pralong farm, in Puy-Saint-Pierre. On the heights of the city fortified by Vauban, Julia and Chris Doras raise sixteen cows of the brown of the Alps.

22 liters of milk to obtain a kilo of raw butter

Surrounded by natural meadows, their exploitation is located away from the village to better blend into the alpine landscape. The activity of the farm starts at dawn, by milking. Every Monday, Julia is skimming. It pours the milk into a centrifuge: the cream is taken, the rest is used to feed the pigs. After a 24 -hour rest with a ferment, the cream is barattated, the butter -separated butter. It is rinsed with cold water, before Julia seized it in large handles to make a clod and shape it in a stainless steel mold. On the young woman’s face appears a smile of satisfaction. It takes 22 liters of milk to obtain a kilo of raw butter. “In this season, milk gives it a bright yellow shade, thanks to the flowers of the mountain pastures,” she observes.

Initially, the couple only sought to provide for their personal consumption. But very quickly, taste and quality push Julia and Chris to market it. They now produce 5 kg per week, sold at the Cup, directly at the farm and on the market. “We want to master everything, from manufacturing to sale. And above all, to tell our products, ”insists the farmer, thus perpetuating the tradition of a production reflecting a terroir. Like wines, the geographer Claire Delfosse even evokes the notion of “raw” to qualify these butters. The one I taste is creamy, delicate, with a soft smell of fresh milk. He seduces… and not only me!

Milk, the soul of the mountain pastures

Wednesday, 9 am. On the Briançon market, we follow Chris, who finds his usual customers, supported by Paul, the eldest of his three children. Chef Fabien Ferdinand is expected. Like every week, 2 kilos of raw butter from the firm will enhance the plates of its restaurant in Monêtier-les-Bains. Everyone has their own way of associating the nugget of the Pralong farm…

Who says mountain says cheese – and precisely, there is one, typical of Queyras, who deserves the detour … on the other side of the Izoard pass. Fan of the Tour de France, Pablo admits to me laughing that he is more used to climbing it by bike than in the car. Needless to say, the “small queen” option is not for me … We stop at Arvieux. Every Thursday evening of summer, a demonstration of milking milking is offered to visitors passing. Behind this initiative, a trio of enthusiasts: François Blanc, Damien Philip and his brother Simon. Their livestock has 65 Tarins. “To make a cheese of character, you need cows of character,” jokes François Blanc. At the Château-Queyras cooperative cheese dairy, their milk gives birth to Queyras blue, a creamy, spicy cheese. Ideal for flavored butter. It only remains for me to find a good slice of toast to delight me …

By continuing our exploration of Queyras, here we are “in the country where the rooster pecks the stars”: Saint-Véran. Perched at 2042 m, it is the highest inhabited village in Europe. It also houses SOUM, the Museum of High Mountain Popular Arts and Traditions, where I hope to learn more about dairy traditions. Among the multitude of everyday objects bequeathed by the inhabitants: three butter jars, but no oil mill. In this isolated village, butter had its place at the table. Besides, at this altitude, how could the olive tree survive?

Like modern day hawkers, we continue to follow the sums of the peaks and approach the Vars pass this time, to lead to Saint-Paul-sur-Ubaye. “La Soute”, in dialect, means “the shelter”, it is also the name of a stopover gîte. This Alpes-de-Haute-Provence village offers much more than a roof to hikers. Mellila Monier welcomes us warmly. With Maugan Raoul, her companion, she also takes care of a coffee and a grocery store that gives pride of place to local products. “Managing the grocery store is a concrete way to integrate into the life of the village. On its shelves, I discover the olive oil of the Moulin des Penitents, in Mées, between Sisteron and Manosque. While the sweet butter “comes straight from the Barcelonnette dairy cooperative, flagship of the Ubaye valley”, she tells me. We are approaching milder regions …

Unexpected marriage

Hired for the summer season, Arthur Jury, 30, is in the stove that evening. Originally from Gap (Hautes-Alpes), he concocts homemade gnocchi, whose dough is prepared … butter, before being fried in olive oil. So, is it possible to associate the two ingredients? “In fact, I never asked myself,” he admits. Before arriving here, I followed a specialized kitchen training for shelters, both nourishing and comforting. Mellila, influenced by the Maghreb origins of her mother, swears by olive oil. Maugan, he, faithful to his Breton roots, keeps butter in reflex. So Arthur, he married both… for the best!

After a sweet night rocked by the waves of the Ubaye river, Pablo is ready to face the turns of the Col de la Bonette, at 2,715 m altitude. As soon as they are crossed, the light is more golden. By crossing the Vesubia valley, the accent becomes Mediterranean. British open windows, I am kidding: “We leave the country of butter, it is undoubtedly because, under the Sun of the Midi, it would tend to melt too quickly … Unless it is the oil that sings better in the pan? More seriously, you just have to open your eyes: the country landscape changes. The olive trees are more present towards the Roya Valley.

An olive culture for two millennia

After many laces, I find Nicolas Gasiglia to evoke his agricultural practice. When he does not exercise as a work controller for the Departmental Council of Alpes-Maritimes, this fifties cultivated his olive trees in Breil-sur-Roya (Alpes-Maritimes). “The Tree of Peace”, as he likes to recall, has been part of family DNA for three generations. At 300 m above sea level, on the Adret, the sunniest side of the mountain, extends the exploitation inherited from his grandfather, an Italian immigrant. The 500 trees in the domain descend the slopes. The culture of the olive tree has been practiced here for almost two millennia. “In the 1930s, there were around 300,000 olive trees and seven oil mills in the valley. Then the young people went to look for work on the Riviera,” he explains. Consequence of this rural exodus: today only 10,000 olive trees remain for production. And no more business mill. The only survivor has become an open museum in summer.

For his oil, Nicolas must send his harvest to a neighboring valley. And it’s not just any olive! He cultivates the Nice Olive, labeled AOP (protected designation of origin). More specifically, the Cailletier variety: a small caliber, which tolerates the frost relatively well, down 8 ° C! Breil-sur-Roya is the most northern site of the appellation, “although with global warming, olive groves tend to take altitude,” he observes. From November to April, armed with his Gaul, Nicolas gently shakes the branches to bring down the fruits. Then comes the sorting: the smallest olives will be used to produce the oil; The averages and large will be brought up in watches in barrels for six months before being transformed into olive paste or consumed as table olives.

Local cords-blueus swear by this oil for their pies and declined on the stock market,, Small squares of stuffed dough. At each village, its recipe! But I discover that Saorge has been celebrating the pie for eight years with a dedicated party every Saturday following July 14.

Revive traditions

We go up the Roya Valley and take a long tunnel at the end of which an amphitheater of houses with ocher and pastel shades is discovered, tight, forming a tangle of alleys, stairs and vaulted passages. Chantal Happy, the aptly named, member of the festival committee, is one of the workers’ ankles of a tradition revived by this event. “We are a few people from the village to prepare the pieces with us. We then carry them on our ” Taiaous ”, large round wooden plates, to put them in the communal oven, restarted for the occasion. This party is a moment when families meet: we eat, we drink, we sing … The young Saorgians also participate, dressed in their traditional costumes. “The girls wear their white carico and a black shawl. On their head, the famous ” Taiaou ”, she describes.

The sixties also entrusts her childhood memories, when the baker cook, at the end of the batch, the pieces. As for the exact recipe? “She gets her eye!” She said to me. What about the farce? “This is another story!” It depends on the seasons. We prepare the red pie from tomatoes, white with zucchini cut into small dice, and that with herbs with wild spinach, nettle tips and borage. “Before you get started, malicious:” So, will you come back for the Fête de la Tourte? ” »»

I am very tempted and I appear my taste buds with a part of the local specialty. A fine paste, both golden and light, a generous stuffing. I justify myself with the photographer: this tasting is part of my work! I have to anchor this memory in my palace as much as in my memory. Because we have reached the final point of our alpine journey. A journey nourished by breathtaking encounters and landscapes. On the invisible border between cooking with butter or olive oil, each pass crossed has opened a new page of traditions, culture … and wonder.