Le Tour de Tout Cochon or the pork from head to tail...

     Sundays in Lausanne are a limited menu. Museums are closed, cafés close early. It's still quite warm. We decided to head up into the mountains. School is in session, autumn is at hand, tourists are fewer. An hour of fast train got us to Martigny, on the Rhone, above Lac Leman. Another hour, first on a Swiss funicular, and then on a French one, got us to Chamonix-Mont Blanc.

     The scenery is the sort that makes you laugh with delight. Pure verticality everywhere you look: Slopes stripped in shades of green below mountain tops lapped in permanent ice and snow, sunlight playing on clouds as they play with the peaks.

     Chamonix in summer is like any ski town in summer. The streets are lined with postcard shops, and stores selling clothing with labels like Sun Valley. By now it was hours since breakfast. We ambled off to a side street. Eventually we saw a sign for a restaurant with local specialties---this is France, Savoie region, in particular. Examining the Maison Carrier menu, we noted two things. The restaurant had been awarded Michelin's Bib Gourmand category---googd value, worth a detour. More importantly the price for a three or four course meal was about half than an ordinary restaurant in Lausanne. 

     A table was available at noon. We waited in the garden, drinking kir royales and citron pressé and reading the menu. Once choice was Tout Cochon - the whole pig, including the trotter, something I'd heard a lot about, but never eaten.

If not here, where?

     Even before the terrine arrived, we were presented with an enormous pat of butter, bread, dried charcuterie, mustard and a crab paste. Somewhere I read a plaintive explanation of American bar-b-que: when you cannot dry meat easily, you must smoke it, and serve it with a sauce to replenish some of what's lost in the heat of the smoker. Well, I come down on the side of smoking, and this region comes down on drying. Ah, well, they make up for this fault with their cheese.

     In any case, the terrine was, to employ that overused word, unctuous. The chicken liver added some oomph.

Homemade terrine with chicken liver,
onions candied in the balsamic and mushrooms in vinegar.

                

     Next came the black pudding. So rich, so delicate. I'm used to it having a sausage casing and being a bit dry, this was not in the least. The bacon, pear and onions with the sautéed potatoes, just the sort of sweet and sour to cut through the richness.
   





So there she blows, the pig's trotter. A lovely crust. I'm ignorant of how to proceed, and pretty sure I went about it all wrong. Fork in left hand, steak knife in the right, all I seemed to do was produce bones, with no meat adhering to them at all. A great deal of work to extract a few morsels of deliciousness. There really was no need for the gravy boat of Béarnaise, do you think? 

Grilled pig's trotter with béarnaise sauce

    The main course was a very nice piece of pork, which had been cooked in the manner of a daube, and then scorched a little. The tomatoes and olives again added some sour to the dish. However, as good as the accompanying gravy was, I will go for some pulled pork bar-b-que, if you care to send some to this realm of air-dried-sliced-shoe-leather.

Slow cooking pork filet mignon with olives and tomatoes,

mashed charlotte potatoes with virgin oil.