Lactose tolerant

>> Melted cheese rules at la Vache Fait Meuh!

by Genevieve Paiement

Early in the New Year, some foodie friends invited us over for a raclette feast, complete with the traditional accompaniments of boiled new potatoes, various charcuteries (ham, air-dried beef etc.), cornichons (gherkins), fresh baguette and Alsatian white wine. It was magic. That night, I made a mental note to get another raclette fix soon, either by investing in a raclette grill, or visiting one of the handful of Montreal’s raclette restos, and fast.

Both France and Switzerland claim to have invented raclette, which refers to both the type of cheese (a semi-firm, slightly salty cow’s milk perfect for melting) and the process of melting it on a flat grill. As the story goes, Alpine cow herders invented raclette during the Middle Ages. After a long day’s herding, they would sit around the fire and leave a hunk of cheese to heat on a hot stone, scraping some off when it started to bubble, and smearing it on a piece of crusty bread.

It was with these early cheese pioneers in mind that I recently headed to la Vache Fait Meuh!, a Plateau eatery, open since 2005, specializing in such cheese-based comfort foods as raclettes, tartiflettes and reblochonnades. Much like fondue, or Korean BBQ, raclette is a social, interactive food, so I invited two dining partners along for the ride.

The first thing we noticed about the LVFM!: The small storefront space is pretty nondescript apart from the excess of cartoon cow images. In case you doubted the primacy of cheese here, there are cows all over the walls, and a collection of cow knickknacks by the cash, including a cow in sunglasses and trench coat who yodels and then flashes her udder (we were treated to this as we settled our bill).

I decided on the boîte chaude ($19.95), a baked box of Vacherin de Franche-Comté cheese accompanied by charcuteries, cornichons, a small salad and toasted baguette. My fellow eaters went for the raclette nature from Quebec ($16.95), and the tartiflette lardons ($16.95), a dish of potatoes, lardons and—you guessed it—melted cheese (this time, a Reblochon), and two of us shared a perfectly respectable half-bottle of Willm Riesling from Alsace ($17.95). Each dish followed the same format: cheese, charcuteries (rosette de Lyon, prosciutto and jambon au torchon, or boiled ham), bread, pickles, maybe some onions or green salad.

Just after placing our orders, the wonderfully pungent smell of melting cheese filled the air—an olfactory foretaste of what was to come. I’m a big fan of meals that require some assembly, so I delighted in my “hot box,” dipping various combinations of meat, potato, bread and pickle into the flavourful, camembert-like round box of piping-hot melted cheese.

The raclette-eater went about melting his cheese on the grill provided and the tartiflette-eater was glad that the flavour of the lardons (small chunks of bacon) didn’t overpower the rich but delicate taste of the Reblochon cheese. As we revelled in these hot dairy delights, we agreed that if you’ve got quality ingredients, which was pretty much the case here, it’s hard to screw up baking cheese, boiling potatoes and laying out some cold cuts.

This being après-ski hearty, stick-to-your ribs stuff, I found the portions to be perfectly adequate, but my two male dining partners griped that the portions could have been more generous. “This is peasant food,” sniffed one, inferring that peasant food should be served in peasant proportions. And where was the viande des Grisons, the Frenchman among us asked? True, the delicious Swiss-made, air-dried beef is a staple accompaniment of raclette and was absent from the menu.

I’d also heard that LVFM! offered that cheese nerd fave, the seasonal, raw-milk Mont d’Or. But we were told they’ve been having trouble getting it into the country. It seems that the cheese police (Canadian customs) regularly refuse entry to this bad boy due to its having been linked to a very rare but sometimes fatal bacterial infection called listeriosis.

With no desserts on offer, we fled into the night, rosy-cheeked and bellies full of heart-warming, Frenchy/Swiss cow-herder fare. Now, the search really is on for a raclette grill to call my own…