It takes just one word: "Allez." When fifth-generation dairy farmer Jean Francoise Marmier utters it, the bucolic mountain meadows of Franche-Comté alter instantly. From out of nowhere, a herd of voluptuous Montbeliarde cows appears and rushes toward Marmier with the zeal of lovers en route to a reunion. Their hooves click-clack over the honey-scented grasses. Some cry out "moo" in anticipation or perhaps competition as they jostle for position. Leather hat in hand, Marmier awaits his brood with open arms.
With Hollywood good looks, Marmier, from the village of Bouverans, sits astride his favorite cow, Celestine, and coos sweet nothings into her floppy ears. "These are my leading ladies," he jokes, telling me he milks them twice a day and then delivers their bounty to Bouverans' official village cheesemaker. "They are very cheesable girls," he continues, slapping one's hefty, polka-dotted rear. She flirts back, batting long, curly eyelashes at him, and then turns to gaze jealously at me. "Moo," she bellows. I get the picture — and flee fast.
Shaped like a chunk of fromage, Franche-Comté is, perhaps, France's least-known region. It borders Switzerland and includes both the Jura and Vosges Mountains, not to mention myriad gorges, wildflower-studded fields, elegant chateaus and villages so idyllic and rural they seem to mock urbanity.
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