diots

Diots are the smoked pork sausages of Savoy, traditionally simmered in white wine from the nearby Apremont or Chignin vineyards. The word comes from the Francoprovençal dialect of the Alps, where diot referred to a sausage and probably carries a root in the pre-Roman substratum of the region. Savoy was not politically part of France until 1860, when a referendum following the Second Italian War of Independence transferred it from the Kingdom of Sardinia to Napoleon III's France.

The Francoprovençal language family, which includes the dialects of Savoy, Lyon, and western Switzerland, is distinct from both French and Occitan. It preserves features of early medieval Latin spoken in Alpine valleys that developed independently from the northern Gallo-Romance dialects that became standard French. Diot is one of the food words that survived in Savoyard dialect after standard French became the administrative language of the region in the nineteenth century.

Traditional diots are made from coarsely ground pork, seasoned with spices and sometimes flavored with nutmeg, then smoked over pine or beech wood. They are sold fresh or dried and eaten pan-fried, braised in wine, or simmered with polenta. Diots au vin blanc, served over polenta taragne made with buckwheat flour, are the canonical winter preparation in Savoyard kitchens.

After Savoy joined France, Parisian food writers began cataloguing regional specialties, and diots appeared in culinary surveys from the 1870s onward as an emblem of Alpine identity. The twentieth century brought refrigeration and standardized charcuterie, and industrial versions of diots became available across France. The Savoie label now applies to artisan versions that follow traditional smoking and seasoning methods, distinguishing them from industrial equivalents.