Le Temps du Comté organizes gastronomic meals in symbolic places to “tell the story of AOP cheese”. This Saturday, May 27, an agreement was given in the heart of the spruce forest Mignovillard (Jura). 150 guests were selected.

They arrive hand in hand, right in the middle of a spruce forest in Mignovillard (Jura). Chantal and her husband have been selected to enjoy a gourmet meal surrounded by nature. A simple registration on the Temps du Comté website and they are driven into the unknown. “The unknown”because no one among the 150 selected guests knew where the event was taking place. “I received an email with the GPS point and after that we don’t really know where we land, it’s a surprise”launches Chantal. “The unknown” also, as today’s menu is kept secret.

Between January and November 2023, Le Temps du Comté is organizing seven iconic meals, all of which are opportunities to sublimate the aromas of Comté. Lunch or dinner, each episode takes place in a different and symbolic place in the county.

7 locations, 15 chefs and 150 guests per meal

This gastronomic adventure began with a dinner under the impressive structure of the Maison du Comté in Poligny (Jura), then a lunch at the Grande Saline in Salins-les-Bains (Jura). This meal in the Mignovillard forest (Jura) is the third lunch in a series of seven. “Why here? The Comté is stored exclusively on rough-sawn fir boards, so there is a connection between the aging and the wood from which it is made, there is a dialogue of flavors that will give Comté its special characteristics » informs Emmanuel Perrodin, nomadic chef “Le temps du Comté”.

At the helm of these seven gourmet chapters, seven duos of chefs follow each other behind the stoves to write again and again new and tasty stories about the first AOP cheese in France. In the Mignovillard forest, it was Jacques Barnachon, the head chef of L’Étang du Moulin in Bonnétale, and the young guard of the French kitchen, Sarah Chougnet-Strudel, gifted chef, passionate about spices and seasonings, who predominate in Marseille in his work. cheerful Regain bistro. “It takes us out of our comfort zone” admits Jacques Barnachon. “I think we were already stressed about the weather and then no gas, no electricity and with Sarah we don’t know each other, so it’s very constructive and interesting. It is a big challenge”.

How did they do it? “We pre-boiled, and then we finish here with barbecue” details Jacques Barnachon.

Panisses, Marseille specialties, reunion with Comté cheese

The menu is tempting: paninis with fruity Comté cheese, seaweed seasoning, grilled asparagus, aged Pastis sabayon, free-range guinea fowl with fir buds… Guests pay nothing, it’s Comté Time that delights! And to stay within the Comté theme and the existing connection between this AOP cheese and fir trees, a 45 meter serpentine table has been set up entirely in fir.

Le Temps du Comté is a nod to the success of the seven editions of La Table du Comté, a traveling event which between 2012 and 2019 brought the taste and know-how of the Comté sector to the four corners of France. In 2023, and for each of the seven occasions of Le Temps du Comté, a chef from Franche-Comté will welcome a chef from another horizon for a meeting on the territory of the county.

Conviviality, exchange, know-how and sharing are the key words in these gourmet stories that are just waiting for their audience! In addition, there are still dates: June 24 in Besançon at the Musée du Temps, September 16 at the Valromey cheese dairy, in Arvière-en-Valromey (Ain) and November 18 in Vevy (Jura), in the Maturation Cellar (Prior) registration at the following website: https://www.letempsducomte.com/)