Along with Fondue and Raclette, it's one of the staples of the Alps. And, along with Fondue and Raclette, it's all about serving melted cheese on boring objects.
For the longest of times I couldn't understand the point of a tartiflette. Until I tried this one. It was served up to me in la Daille, at the base of some wicked slopes, and it was absolutely sublime. The secret of tartiflette is that it's not just melted cheese, it's melted REBLOCHON cheese. Reblochon is a cheese whose sole aim, sole goal in life is to be melted, and ideally melted over potatoes and bacon.
So how'dya cook one? Well, conversations in ski resorts revolve around only two topics - the latest dump, and cheese-based cuisine - so here's what I was told:
Put the potatoes on to boil (you need the right sort of potatoes, but that's a different story). Fry up the onions and bacon until crispy. When the potatoes are ready, mix in the onions and bacon, add white wine, and stir until the wine has dried out. Throw this mess into a heated earthenware dish, top with as many hearty slabs of REBLOCHON as your arteries can handle without choking, and bake in a hot four until ready.
The Tartiflette is not something to be taken lightly - it should be downed with endless quaffs of rich wine, or a tankard of beer, and is best followed with a few descents of the blackest runs you can muster (or, in my case, the greenest).
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