Aligot — Laguiole, France

Aligot is a mashed-potato preparation worked with fresh curd cheese until it turns elastic, lifted from the pan in long, unbroken ribbons rather than spooned flat. The stretch is the point of the dish: a properly worked aligot should stand up off the spoon before falling back slowly. It is reported from the Aubrac, the high plateau spanning Aveyron, Cantal and Lozère, of which Laguiole is often named the capital. The plateau's summer-pasture huts, known as burons, once produced both the hard Laguiole cheese and, as a by-product, the fresh curd — pressed for only a few hours — that gives aligot its texture. Potatoes are boiled and passed through a mill or ricer, then warmed again with butter and cream. The fresh curd, cut into strips, is folded in gradually and beaten hard with a wooden spoon or spatula, lifting the mixture as it goes, until it forms one elastic mass that pulls cleanly from the sides of the pan. A common proportion is roughly one part cheese to two parts potato. What marks aligot out from other cheese-and-potato mixtures of the Massif Central is this deliberate working of the curd into strings, tested by lifting a spoonful high above the pan. It is usually brought straight to the table in the cooking pot and served alongside country sausage, a pairing common at the region's village festivals.