I have always believed that the true test of a holiday begins not with the view from your window, but with what you manage to put in your stomach. My recent trip to a chalet in Courmayeur put this theory to the absolute limit, and not always in ways I would care to repeat.

The journey from the UK had been one of those classic alpine epics: early flight to Geneva, a hire car that smelled faintly of wet dog, and then the slow climb through the Mont Blanc tunnel. I had packed with what I considered admirable efficiency. One small bag, essentials only, a man travelling light. What I had not packed, in my smug minimalism, was any actual food. Not a biscuit, not a sad airport sandwich, nothing. This oversight became apparent approximately three hours later when I arrived at the chalet, starving, at half past eight on a Sunday evening in late autumn.

Courmayeur in the off-season is many wonderful things. A bustling hub of late-night supermarkets is not among them. I discovered this after a frantic drive through darkening mountain roads, finding nothing but locked doors and shuttered windows. The local Coop had closed at eight. The smaller shops in the village centre had closed earlier still. I sat in that hire car, contemplating my own foolishness, wondering if I could subsist on the mints I had found in the glove compartment until morning.

Salvation came from the most unexpected quarter. A small bar near the main piazza, La Terrazza, was still serving. I stumbled in with the desperate energy of a man who had not eaten since a disappointing croissant in Geneva. The barman, a wiry chap called Marco who looked like he had seen this exact panic a thousand times before, took pity on me. He produced a plate of charcuterie that I can only describe as life-affirming. Jambon de Bosses, that delicate cured ham from just up the valley. Lard d'Arnad, rendered and spiced until it practically melted on the tongue. A few cornichons, some local bread that had the proper chew to it. I ate with the focused intensity of someone who had genuinely believed they might not see another meal.

That first night set the tone for everything that followed. I woke determined never to repeat my humiliation, and marched down to the weekly market that sets up near the cable car station. The Valle d'Aosta market culture is something to behold, even in a modest setup. I bought fontina cheese by the wedge, the proper stuff from the cooperative in Valpelline, nutty and slightly elastic. I found honey from hives kept up in the high meadows, dark and complex. A woman sold me dried chestnuts and a rough slab of lard that I had absolutely no plan for but suddenly needed very badly.

Back at the chalet, I attempted to cook. This is where gentle self-reflection becomes necessary. I am not a natural in the kitchen. My fontina fondue seized into a rubbery mass that clung to the fork like something alive. My attempt at carbonade, that beef stew made with local wine, emerged edible but spiritually defeated. The problem, I told myself, was altitude. Everything boils differently at a thousand metres. This was my excuse and I stuck to it with the tenacity of a man who has no other explanation for his failures.

What saved me, repeatedly, was the local pub and restaurant scene. Courmayeur punches above its weight for a small mountain town. I found myself returning to Bar Roma, that institution near the pedestrian street, for their polenta concia, made with enough butter and cheese to stop a heart from across the room. I ate seupa a la vapelenentse, that bread and cabbage soup thickened with fontina, at a tiny place whose name I never properly caught, sitting at a table where the previous diner's wine glass still held a thumbprint of red.

The chalet kitchen saw its successes too, eventually. I learned to keep things simple. A plate of sliced lard with good bread and local honey. A hunk of fontina warmed slightly until it ran at the edges. The market became my ritual, Tuesday and Friday mornings, chatting with vendors in my dreadful Italian, coming back with more than I needed and finding ways to use it.

By my final evening, I had achieved something approaching competence. I made a proper fonduta, whisking the fontina with milk and egg yolk until it actually worked, pouring it over roasted local potatoes. I ate it on the chalet balcony with a bottle of Petite Arvine, watching the last light on Monte Bianco, feeling genuinely pleased with myself.

Then I tried to make coffee in the moka pot and produced something that tasted of burnt regret. Some lessons, it seems, take longer than a fortnight to learn.