A FOOD TRADITION

Valaisan cuisine

Valaisan cuisine developed in the Rhône valley and its high Alpine side valleys, where dry mountain conditions encouraged cheese making, grain storage, preserving, and seasonal communal meals. Rye bread, potatoes, cabbage, onions, dried meats, raclette cheese, and valley wines are characteristic ingredients. Cooking includes hearth baking, grilling cheese, drying meat and fruit, and preparing substantial soups and casseroles for agricultural and alpine work. Familiar examples include raclette, cholera, and brisolée, a roasted chestnut meal traditionally accompanied by autumnal foods such as cheese, fruit, or cured meats. Valaisan cooking overlaps with neighboring Alpine traditions, but its combination of rye, preserved produce, cheese, and vineyard culture is distinctive enough to catalog separately.

Catalogue preview Cuisine connections may be unreviewed. Regional comparisons include their food references and do not establish the ingredients of a particular meal.