Dôle is the town of Louis Pasteur, but it is also the ideal place to taste the regional cheese: the Comté! Local pride for centuries. Already in antiquity, the region was known for its large cheeses, which the Romans came to buy and kept rolled in sand and locked in lead boxes.
But it was in the Middle Ages that the vachelin, the former name of the county, will grow in importance: the winters are harsh and famine often threatens the inhabitants. So, cow breeders organize themselves to have the quantity necessary for the manufacture of their cheeses: 400 liters of milk for a SINGLE wheel of 40 kg! They founded the first cooperatives, called “fructeries”, the ancestors of the famous fruitières.
We went from the name of Vachelin to that of County under Louis XIV, who conquered Franche-Comté and many Swiss from the Gruyère region came to settle. They bring with them a new technique for curdling cheese. It is then called Vachelin Gruyère. Nearly 200 years later, it took the name of “Gruyère de Comté”, and in 1958, it was the first cheese to receive a registered designation of origin !
The Tour therefore also stops in Lausanne, an opportunity to return to the eternal debate, is the fondue Swiss or French? I have the answer! Even if the Savoyard fondue, made from Beaufort, Comté and Gruyère cheese from Savoie, has nothing to envy to the Swiss fondue, the oldest recipe can be found in a Swiss cookbook from 1699, written by a woman! But it is still somewhat confidential, since it does not leave the country. At the beginning of the 19th century, the great French gourmet Brillat-Savarin formalizes its origin, evoking a healthy, tasty and appetizing dish, ideal for unexpected guests! Like a peloton of cyclists, for example…