Local specialties
In Lozère, agriculture has always been synonymous with maintaining the population, maintaining the landscape and even developing the territory. Thus, the typical dishes and meals of this rather unfertile land are made of the few ingredients available. Pork meat for starters, with small-scale farms that process in short circuits. The altitude and the dry air of Lozere allow an ideal drying for the salted meats, with many recipes, from the pâté de campagne to the pâté de couenne, through the boudin and the tripoux... And since "in the pig all is good", the "tue-cochon" is still very practised, in winter, to make the reserves of the year in delicatessen and preserves.
The aligot.
Mashed potatoes with fresh melted cow's milk cheese and garlic. This dish from Aubrac, invented by the monks in the Middle Ages, was a hearty preparation for pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela.
Bajanat.
This typical winter dish of the Lozère Cévenole was prepared with dried chestnuts called blanchettes. This soup can be eaten with milk, sweetened or salted, with wine or with prunes.
The manoul.
The sheep also has its speciality, the manoul. Like its cousins the tripoux and other pieds paquets, it is about small pockets (of the size of a small hand, from where the name) cut out of the sheep's belly and filled with salted breast, tripe, these are then cooked for a long, long time (ideally 7 hours) in a court-bouillon seasoned with thyme, bay leaves, carrots, onions, white wine and a heel or a bone of dry ham. Serve hot with steamed potatoes!
The peyroulade.
This is a pearl barley soup (i.e. barley from which the skin of the grain has been removed). It can be enriched with potatoes or beans and bound with a beaten egg or milk. This traditional soup is honored by the brotherhood of the Peyroulade, based in Villefort.
La pouteille
The grass sausage.
It is a misnomer because it can be decorated with vegetables, cabbage (north of the department), chard (Lot Valley, Causses and Cevennes), potatoes and even bread (Randon country). The proportion of vegetables is at least 1/3 and often more. The sausage meat is made exclusively with fat and lean pork. The casing is natural as well as the seasonings (salt, pepper, spices). Boiled or grilled, it is one of the specialities of the Lozerian family pork-butchery, the only traditional preparation which combines for centuries vegetables and pork.
The coupétad.
Dessert from the north of Lozere, made of stale bread slices soaked in milk, covered with a vanilla and prune custard. Its name comes from the " coupet ", a kind of very deep earthen dish which was put in the oven with the bread.
Flaouzouno or pélardon pie.
At the beginning of the century, this cake was traditionally sold at the May fair in Pompidou. The term "pélardon" is recent (it is perhaps a deformation of the word "péral", small stone or pebble); it would have been given to the small goat cheeses for their similarity of shape.
Meat, poultry and game
Beef is represented in the Massif Central by the Aubrac breed. Very hardy, it was used in the past for field work, perfectly adapted to the rigors of winter. Its cows are very recognizable with their mahogany brown livery and their black hemmed eyes. The breeding is extensive, in pastures, and lasts from 2 to 4 years, giving a meat of a frank red, particularly tasty. It should be noted that the milk production of this breed is used to make Cantal and Laguiole cheese. Today, the herd counts nearly 70,000 animals, mainly in Lozère and some neighboring cantons. The meat is sold mainly in traditional butcher shops under the collective brand Fleur d'Aubrac.
In the past, sheep were raised primarily for wool production, but today they are raised for milk production. The demand for lamb meat has led farmers to seriously consider this production. Fighting on price with imports from the southern hemisphere being an impossible task, they preferred to play the quality card, for a top-of-the-range product: lamb under the mother. The ewes are fed in extensive pastures, in the scrubland or in the summer pastures. At birth, the lambs are suckled under the mother, not weaned, for a period of 80 to 120 days, under conditions of optimum breeding comfort and hygiene. The transport of the live animals to three approved slaughterhouses must avoid stress. The end result is a light-colored meat, well pinked, fine and tasty, reserved for the end of the year, Easter and baptisms.
The trilogy of animal productions does not forget the pig. It is present in Lozere through the pork-butchery, which can be found in all butchers and also on the menu of all restaurants. Here also, some specific products can surprise the traveler. The ceremony of killing the pig has given birth to a delicious dish: the bag of bones. When the pig is killed, scraps of meat or cartilage, bits of tail, scraps of ham remain on the cutting table. They are then packed in the stomach of the pig (carefully cleaned), salted and seasoned. Before cooking in a court-bouillon (3 hours), it must be desalted for 2 days. In the end, a delight!
Cheese, dairy products
The real country of cheese is the department of Lozère, with a good fifty different productions. A rigorous selection of the animals, extensive breeding techniques and the use of special land, allow us to obtain high quality milk. Added to this, the know-how of the breeders and the richness of the soils have allowed the production of five AOC cheeses in the department and the neighbouring regions (Aubrac, Cévennes...).
In cow's milk, these are the bleu des Causses and the bleu d'Auvergne, two blue-veined cheeses, matured from 3 to 6 months in natural cellars, and the laguiole, close to the cantal. The fresh tomme that is the basis of these cheeses is used to make the famous aligot. When it does not benefit from the AOC, it can be found on the markets under the name of fourme d'Aubrac. The traditional production by the shepherds in the burons, small cheese dairies scattered on the mountain pastures, is disappearing.
Made in the neighboring region, Roquefort is a blue-veined cheese made from sheep's milk. If the maturing is done in the locality itself, according to age-old practices and techniques, the milk is harvested in an area that extends over several departments of southern France. The Lozere causses and their herds are an important production area.
Pélardon, made essentially on the farm (85%), extends its production area over the Cévennes, the Causses, and the hinterland of the Aude. Made of goat's milk, rennet and salt, it has a compact paste under a cream-colored bloomy rind. It can be eaten fresh, soft or dry, depending on your taste. It can also be cooked (breaded, au gratin, in salads). In some regions, it is customary to preserve it in a jar of olive oil, flavored with thyme, bay leaf and pepper.
In addition to the appellation products, many producers offer other cheeses, marketed directly on the farms or developed by artisanal or industrial cheese dairies. Let's mention the fédou, a traditional cheese, with a soft paste and bloomy rind, sold by the piece; the berger de Lozère, made with raw milk and the blue cheese of Lozère (petit risso, blue cheese of Luc with a firm and blue paste). The bergeronnette, it, is a ewe's milk cheese, creamy fresh or semi-fresh. Pérail is one of the only soft cheeses made from sheep's milk. Delicious and melting, it is appreciated by connoisseurs and the demand is increasing.
Very dynamic and reacting to the different crises that affect agriculture, Lozère's milk producers are not short of ideas... and above all do not hesitate to put them into practice. Thus, the company Duo Lozère manufactures and markets under its brand yoghurts, cow and ewe white cheeses, and recently innovated in partnership with a Lozerian company specialized in aromatic and medicinal herbs, with hydrolaits: organic yoghurts flavored with floral waters of rose, orange blossom, mint or lemon verbena.
The chestnut, emblematic!
The chestnut tree, nicknamed the breadfruit tree of the Cevennes, allowed many generations to survive. Interesting from a dietary point of view, the chestnut is rich in starch, magnesium, iron and potassium. It can be eaten in many ways: boiled or roasted over a wood fire, in soup or puree, in jam or in the form of flour (it can then be used in baking or pastry making as a wheat flour, whose taste is extraordinary). The traditional way of preserving it is to transform it into a chestnut by drying it in a "clède", a building built for this purpose where a low fire burns permanently on the first floor for four weeks. The dried fruit is preserved for many months and to use it, it is enough to rehydrate it.
Beers, ciders
If there was a brewing tradition in Lozere, it was limited to Mende from the first third of the 19th century. In the 1950s, now fashionable, breweries flourish in the department. After the beer of Verfeuille, the first to dare, the brewers of Jonte in Gatuzières at the extreme south of the department, propose a pretty range. La Tarnonaise is located in Vébron in the Cévennes and exists in blond, amber and brown. Then comes the brewery of Lozere which produces "la 48" in Mende, white, blond, amber with as novelties an amber with the liqueur of ceps and an amber of Christmas. A Belgian born Lozerian who specializes in this drink has created "la petite brasserie du Méjean" in Nivoliers on the Méjean Causse. In Chanac, it's the Bestià that's making a splash... All of them are charming, artisanal and even organic ! As for Aubrac, it is made in Aveyron... The only thing missing is that the Margeride gets involved to create a beer road going around the department! Come on, cheers!
