Trying French Food: Raclette

Date: Saturday, 8th February, 2014

Raclette is a typical French meal that involves the best French food: cheese. Raclette is a type of cheese that is made from cow's milk and it most often used for melting. The term raclette comes from the French verb "racler" which means 'to scrape', but the meal is originally from Switzerland. As I live in the Haute-Savoie here in France, a lot of the food is similar to parts of Switzerland as they are more Savoyard traditions.

Raclette involves melting cheese, traditionally by a fire but nowadays machines exist for the purpose of melting the cheese in small, individualised trays that allow diners to melt their own pieces of cheese at their own pace. Typical accompaniments include potatoes, meat (usually ham and sausage), pickled onions, and gherkins. Unfortunately I didn't know about the pickled onions or gherkins so they weren't included in our soirée.

My landlady was going out and she owns a raclette machine, I asked her if it was ok for me to invite some friends round and to use the machine, and luckily she said yes! So I had 7 people round and served raclette for all 8 of us! The meats I had in the selection were some sort of sausage (possible salami?), chorizo, parma ham and bacon. We also had a salad, and, as is French tradition, lots of fresh bread. Personally I think the night was a success; we ate a lot and it wasn't too much effort to put the whole evening together. The only problem was trying to fit 8 people round our table when realistically it will comfortably seat 6!