Visit to Pontarlier, a day full of tasting!

Saturday was another delightful outing to the area surrounding Besançon, specifically the town of Pontarlier. Christine and I joined a busload of other university students to visit four local production houses? not sure what to call them in English, so I will jump and describe.

First we visited a fromagerie where the famous local cheese, Comté, is produced 365 days a year. Farmers in the area bring in the fresh, raw milk of their Montebeliard cows (red and white) early each morning, and then the cheese makers set to work. In two large copper vats, they heat the milk slightly (never to a boil) and mix it thoroughly. After a bit, it turns to a sort of jello texture, at which point they break it up into little curds. Next they pour the curds into large cheese wheel molds (the container, not the fungus) and press the excess moisture out. The work is labor intensive, from milking the cows by hand to producing the enormous cheese wheels. It takes 20 some cows to produce 410 litres of milk, which translates into twelve 40 kilogram (88 pound) wheels per day.

After a while, the wheels are moved downstairs into the caves, where they are allowed to age. Every day, salt water is rubbed on the outside of the wheels to form the distinctive, protective, (and inedible) shell. The cheese is legally required to age for at least 4 months, and is often eaten at 1-3 years. Older Comté cheese is generally reserved for holiday festivities. We were given a healthy sampling of 1 year and 3 year Comté, both very mild and tasty! The older one is more crumbly and salty, almost a little gritty. The cheese is not pasteurized, in order to preserve the " good germs" as the cheese maker explained to us. Also Comté cheese can only be produced in this region, as its name is protected by the French government- kind of like how only champagne from Champagne is allowed to use the name champagne.

From there we visited the Distillerie Armand Guy, a distillery that has been in operation since the 1800s. It isn't just any old distillery, either- it produces the distinctive apératif (before dinner drink) Pontarlier-Anis (distilled aniseed-flavored liquor- like black licorice). I know most people don't like the flavor of anise, but I am a big fan!  The whole area around the petite distillery smelled of anise, mm mmm mmm!  Sadly I still don't understand very well how it is made, as the tour guide was a little short with us (a group of around 50), and skipped quickly on to the tasting.  Again the French proved to be incredibly generous with their samples, offering a sizable glass of any of the many different liquors they produce.

Wanting to try the anise-flavored one, I reached for a glass of what I thought was the milky white colored apératif. It was not Pontarlier-Anise that I sipped, however- and you'll never believe what it was! ... Absinthe! The Green Fairy! Outlawed for nearly a century, thought to cause men to literally lose their minds, and reinstated in France since 2001. I can see why it was outlawed- I have never tasted a flavor that overpowering in my life, and not in a good way. Made with one part distilled anise and two parts distilled absinthe (a plant which grows abundantly in the region), it assaults your tastebuds and coats your mouth, almost numbingly, so that you can taste nothing else. Blech.

After a healthy dose of good old water, I was able to taste the light and pleasant flavor of Pontarlier-Anise. Not bad, much much better than Absinthe. I bought a little flask of it, and as a little goes a long way, I might still have some for you to try when I get back to Iowa!

Next we had a picnic lunch in the park, and I was more than happy to share my PB & J sandwiches with Christine.  I will tell you more about the European perception of peanut butter some other time, it is quite the story!  But suffice it to say she was nice enough to try it, even if she didn't want very much.

In the afternoon we visited a miellerie, or honey farm, which actually wasn't that great.  The tour guide this time was completely rude and talked to us as if we were all stupid and couldn't understand him.  We understand, we just don't like you!!  Anyway the only interesting thing is that they make seven different types of honey, most of them are the consistency of an ointment, and they all have very distinctive flavors.  After watching the bees working on the honeycombs, I honestly didn't have much of an appetite for their labor.  

Finally we made one last stop to a meat smoke house, which had a really weird feel to it.  Not much to tour, we walked into the smoke room (they only smoke at night) and were greeted by hundreds of sausages, hanging on racks all around us and even from the ceiling!  The really weird part, though, was the automatons (robotic people).  There were three of them, incredibly lifelike and sooo creepy, twitching and talking in sing-song french voices.  Turns out they were modeled after real people that worked at the smoke house!   I saw a photo of the people standing next to their automatons and the likeness was uncanny.  Made my skin crawl.  

I came home to an empty house (the family had gone to a friend's house for dinner) but that meant that I had the chance to use their computer to talk to Mary on Skype, what a treat!  All in all it was a very good day.