Tartiflette () is a dish from

Savoy Savoy (; frp, Savouè ; french: Savoie ) is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south. Sa ...

in the

French Alps The French Alps are the portions of the Alps mountain range that stand within France, located in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regions. While some of the ranges of the French Alps are entirely in France, others, such as ...

and from

Aosta Valley , Valdostan or Valdotainian it, Valdostano (man) it, Valdostana (woman)french: Valdôtain (man)french: Valdôtaine (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = Official languages , population_blank1 = Italian French ...

. It is made with

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Uni ...

es,

reblochon Reblochon () is a soft washed-rind and smear-ripened French cheese made in the Alpine region of Haute-Savoie from raw cow's milk. It has its own AOC designation. Reblochon was first produced in the Thônes and Arly valleys, in the Aravis massi ...

cheese, lardons and

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the on ...

s. A splash of white wine can be added too. The word ''tartiflette'' is probably derived from the Arpitan word for potato (''tartiflâ'') or from the Savoyard ''tartifles'', a term also found in Provençal and Gallo-Italian. This modern recipe was inspired by a traditional dish called péla: a

gratin Gratin () is a culinary technique in which an ingredient is topped with a browned crust, often using breadcrumbs, grated cheese, egg or butter.Courtine, Robert J. (ed.) (2003) ''The Concise Larousse Gastronomique'' London: Hamlyn The term ma ...

cooked in a long-handled pan called a ''pelagic'' (shovel). Often served as an

après-ski A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. In Europe, most ski resorts are towns or villages in or adjacent to a ski area – a mountainous area with pistes (ski trails) and a ski lift system. In North ...

meal, tartiflette conveys an image of Alpine authenticity and conviviality.

History

As with many traditional dishes in the region, the potato is a staple ingredient. Savoy was historically part of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...

, and the Savoyards were exposed to potato

tubers Tubers are a type of enlarged structure used as storage organs for nutrients in some plants. They are used for the plant's perennation (survival of the winter or dry months), to provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing s ...

earlier than the French. Tartiflette was first mentioned in a 1705 book, ''Le Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois'', written by François Massialot and his assistant cook B. Mathieu. In its modern form, tartiflette began to appear on the menus of restaurants in the ski resorts in the 1980s. Its popularity is partly thanks to the promotional effort by ''Le Syndicat Interprofessionnel du Reblochon'' to boost the sales of reblochon, as is confirmed also by Christian Millau (of the Gault-Millau Guide) in his gastronomic dictionary.

Variations

A common related dish found throughout the region is the ''croziflette''. Its preparation resembles that of the original dish in everything but the use of potatoes, in place of which minuscule squares of locally produced pasta are used. These are known as crozets de Savoie (which are usually made from buckwheat, but sometimes durum), hence the name of this dish, which is a blend of "crozet" and "tartiflette". Another related dish is the ''morbiflette'' prepared with the

Morbier cheese Morbier () is a semi-soft cows' milk cheese of France named after the small village of Morbier in Franche-Comté. It is ivory colored, soft and slightly elastic, and is immediately recognizable by the distinctive thin black layer separating it h ...

in place of the Reblochon.

References

{{Potato dishes Potato dishes French cuisine Cuisine of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes