Old World crafts, cheese to chateau

You would think that only a big factory could produce enough to satisfy the appetites of the fromage-loving French. But it turns out that the process is small scale and personal. And that human touch is what makes this obscure corner of France — less than three hours by train from Paris — perfect for Slow Food touring. Sandwiched between Burgundy and Switzerland, Franche-Comté not only has its signature cheese and some distinctive wines, it is also dotted with rustic inns where Michelin-starred chefs offer complete tasting menus for the price of a main dish in Paris.

The landscape skews more toward Switzerland than Burgundy with buttercup-laden pastures, rolling hills punctuated by rocky outcrops, and mountain lakes. Green valleys harbor tidy villages and prosperous market towns.

Poligny is the center of the Franche-Comté cheese industry and La Maison du Comté, a cross between a museum and a tourist office, is a good place to get some perspective on the vastly popular cheese with an intensely local accent. Monsieur Comté, an animated wheel of cheese, narrates a short film about the cheese-making process, and displays demonstrate the operations of each village’s fruitière, the cooperative cheese dairy. In short, farmers within an eight-mile radius deliver their milk twice a day and each morning it’s made into cheese. When the cheeses begin to develop a protective skin within a few weeks, they are transferred to a regional aging cellar.

Roughly 3,000 family farms, 170 fruitières, and 20 aging facilities are spread throughout Franche-Comté, which is about the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. Operations that welcome visitors are listed in a booklet (in French with some English translation) available at the Maison du Comté and are marked with a green-and-white plaque with a cowbell. Some sites require advance reservations; ask for help at the Maison or any village tourist office.