Farcement

Farcement, or farçon depending on the valley, is one of the most distinctive dishes of Haute-Savoie. A cake of grated potatoes, sweet and savoury at once, mixing bacon, prunes and raisins, cooked very slowly in a bain-marie in a special mould. It is a feast-day, Sunday dish, rich and filling, that takes time but few ingredients.

A dish of the Mont-Blanc area

Farcement is cooked from the Chablais to the Faucigny, with the Arve valley and the Mont-Blanc area as the heart of the tradition. The slopes of Passy, which grew plums, explain the prunes in the recipe. Each valley, sometimes each family, has its version, more or less sweet. The name of the mould, the rabolire, has become inseparable from the dish. It was a dish put on to cook for the length of the Sunday mass.

Sweet and savoury, on purpose

What surprises in farcement is the mix of savoury and sweet in a single mouthful. The potatoes and bacon give the savoury, fatty side; the prunes and raisins, the sweet side. This pairing comes from an old peasant cooking, where the sweetness of dried fruit was a way to make a feast-day dish more generous. It is not a modern dish, and that is exactly its appeal.

The recipe in outline

Count above all on time: farcement cooks about four hours in a bain-marie. You grate raw potatoes by hand, with a coarse grater to avoid strings. You butter the mould generously, line it with bacon slices stood upright lengthways, then fill with the mix of potatoes, prunes, raisins, sometimes a little egg and flour. You close it and let it cook gently in the bain-marie. The farcement is turned out hot, wrapped in golden bacon.

Serving it

Farcement is served as a main, often with a sausage or a meat, or on its own as it is so filling. It is a winter dish, for the family table. A Savoie red such as mondeuse goes well with it: see Savoie wines. You find it mostly in the Mont-Blanc area, around Saint-Gervais, Combloux and Megève, at traiteurs and in traditional restaurants. To place it among the other dishes, see the Savoyard specialities page.