Local specialties
In Lozère, agriculture has always been synonymous with maintaining the population, maintaining the landscape and even developing the land. As a result, the typical dishes of this relatively unfertile land are made from the few ingredients available. Pork, for starters, is produced on small-scale farms in short circuits. The altitude and dry air of Lozère are ideal for curing cured meats, with a wide range of recipes, from pâté de campagne to pâté de couenne, boudin and tripoux... And since "everything's good with a pig", the "tue-cochon" is still widely practiced in winter, to stock up on charcuterie and preserves for the year.
Aligot. Mashed potatoes with fresh melted cow's tomme and garlic. This Aubrac dish, invented by monks in the Middle Ages, was a hearty preparation for pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela.
Bajanat. This typical winter dish from the Lozère Cévennes region was made with dried chestnuts called blanchettes. This soup can be eaten with milk, sweetened or salted, wine or prunes.
Manoul. Mutton also has its own speciality, manoul. Like its cousins tripoux and pieds paquets, these are small pockets (about the size of a small hand, hence the name) cut from sheep's bellies and filled with salted brisket, 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 bone of cured ham. Serve hot with steamed potatoes!
Peyroulade. This is a pearl barley soup (i.e. barley from which the skin has been removed). It can be enriched with potatoes or beans and bound with beaten egg or milk. This traditional soup is honored by the Peyroulade brotherhood, based in Villefort.
Pouteille. A Canourguais dish of marinated beef, pig's trotters and potatoes, once made for each family and then taken to the baker's oven in a "toupi", an earthenware pot. The illustrious confrérie de la Pouteille et du Manouls in La Canourgue defends these two Lozère specialties.
Grass sausage. A misnomer, it's true, as it can be garnished with vegetables, cabbage (north of the département), chard (Lot Valley, Causses and Cévennes), potatoes or even bread (Randon region). The proportion of vegetables is at least a third, and often more. The sausage meat is made exclusively from pork fat and lean. The casing is natural, as are the seasonings (salt, pepper, spices). Boiled or grilled, it's one of the specialties of Lozère family charcuterie, and the only traditional preparation that has combined vegetables and pork for centuries.
Coupétad. A dessert from northern Lozère, made with slices of stale bread soaked in milk, topped with a vanilla and prune custard. Its name comes from the coupet, a kind of deep earthen dish that was placed in the oven with the bread.
Flaouzouno or pélardon tart. At the turn of the century, this cake was traditionally sold at the May fair in Pompidou. The term pélardon is a recent one (perhaps a deformation of the word péral, meaning small stone or pebble); it is said to have been given to small goat cheeses because of their similarity in shape.
Meat, poultry and game
Beef in the Massif Central is represented by the Aubrac breed. Very hardy, it was once used for field work, perfectly adapted to the rigors of winter. Its cows are highly recognizable with their mahogany-brown livery and black-hemmed eyes. Extensive rearing on pasture lasts from 2 to 4 years, producing particularly tasty, deep-red meat. The breed's milk production is used to make Cantal and Laguiole cheeses. Today, the herd numbers some 70,000 animals, mainly in Lozère and neighboring cantons. The meat is sold mainly in traditional butcher's shops under the Fleur d'Aubrac collective brand.
While sheep were once bred primarily for wool production, and today for milk production, the demand for lamb meat has led breeders to take a serious look at this production. As price competition with imports from the southern hemisphere was an impossible task, they preferred to play the quality card, for a top-of-the-range product: lamb under the mother's milk. The ewes are fed on extensive pasture, in the garrigue or in summer pastures. From birth, the lambs are suckled under the mother's milk, unweaned, for 80 to 120 days, in conditions of optimum rearing comfort and hygiene. Live animals are transported to three approved abattoirs to avoid stress. The end result is clear, pink, fine and tasty meat, reserved for the end-of-year period, Easter and christenings.
The trilogy of animal productions does not include pork. Pork is present in Lozère through charcuterie, which can be found in all butchers' shops and on the menus of all restaurants. Here too, a few specific products may surprise the traveler. The ceremony of "killing the pig" has given rise to a delicious dish: the bag of bones. When a pig is killed, scraps of meat or cartilage, bits of tail and scraps of ham remain on the cutting table. These are then packed into the pig's stomach (carefully cleaned), salted and seasoned. Before cooking in court-bouillon (3 hours), it must be desalted for 2 days. All in all, a delight!
Cheese, dairy products
The real cheese country is the Lozère department, with over fifty different products. Careful selection of livestock, extensive rearing techniques and the use of special terroir grazing lands all contribute to the production of top-quality milk. Added to this, the know-how of the breeders and the richness of the terroirs have led to the production of five AOC cheeses in the département and neighbouring regions (Aubrac, Cévennes...).
In cow's milk, these are Bleu des Causses and Bleu d'Auvergne, two blue-veined cheeses matured for 3 to 6 months in natural cellars, and Laguiole, similar to Cantal. The fresh tomme that forms the basis of these cheeses is used to make the famous Aligot. When it doesn't have AOC status, it can be found on the market under the name fourme d'Aubrac. Traditional production by shepherds in burons, small cheese dairies scattered across the mountain pastures, is disappearing.
Made in the neighboring region, Roquefort is a blue-veined cheese made from ewe's milk. While maturing takes place in the locality itself, according to age-old practices and techniques, the milk is harvested in an area that extends over several départements in the south of France. The Lozère causses and their herds are an important production zone.
Pélardon, made mainly on the farm (85%), extends its production area over the Cévennes, the Causses and the hinterland of the Aude. Made from goat's milk, rennet and salt, it has a compact paste under a creamy, bloomy rind. It can be eaten fresh, soft or dry, according to individual taste. It can also be cooked (breaded, au gratin, in salads). In some regions, it's customary to preserve it in a jar of olive oil, flavored with thyme, bay leaf and pepper.
In addition to appellation products, many producers offer other cheeses, marketed directly on farms or developed by artisanal or industrial cheese dairies. These include fédou, a traditional soft cheese with a bloomy rind, sold by the piece; berger de Lozère, made with raw milk and Lozère blue cheeses (petit risso, a firm, blue-veined Luc blue). Bergeronnette, on the other hand, is a sheep's pérail, a creamy fresh or semi-fresh cheese. Pérail is one of the only soft cheeses made from sheep's milk. Delicious and melt-in-the-mouth, it is appreciated by connoisseurs, and demand is growing.
Very dynamic and responsive to the various crises affecting agriculture, Lozère milk producers are not short of ideas... and above all, they don't hesitate to put them into practice. Duo Lozère, for example, manufactures and markets yoghurts, cow's and ewe's milk cheeses under its own brand name, and has recently partnered with a newly-established Lozère company specializing in aromatic and medicinal herbs to innovate 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 Cévennes, has ensured the survival of many generations. Chestnuts are rich in starch, magnesium, iron and potassium. Chestnuts can be eaten in a variety of ways: boiled or roasted over a wood fire, in soup or purée, in jam or in flour form (they can then be used in bakery or pastry-making like wheat flour, which has an extraordinary taste). The traditional way of preserving it is to turn it into a "châtaignon" by drying it in a "clède", a purpose-built building where a low fire burns continuously on the first floor for four weeks. In this way, the dried fruit can be kept for many months, and to use it, all you have to do is rehydrate it.
Beers, ciders
If there was ever a brewing tradition in Lozère, it was limited to Mende in the first third of the 19th century. By the 1950s, breweries had become fashionable and flourished in the département. After Verfeuille's beer, the first to dare, the Jonte brewers in Gatuzières, in the far south of the department, offer a fine range. La Tarnonaise, located in Vébron in the Cévennes, comes in blond, amber and brown. Then there's the Lozère brewery, which produces "la 48" in Mende, in white, blond and amber, with new releases including an amber with cep liqueur and a Christmas amber. A Belgian-born neo-Lozérien specializing in this beverage has created the Petite Brasserie du Méjean at Nivoliers on the Causse Méjean. In Chanac, it's the Bestià that's making a splash... All are charming, artisanal and even organic! As for Aubrac, it's made in Aveyron. All that's missing is for Margeride to get in on the act and create a beer route running the length and breadth of the département. Cheers!
