Boris_A

There's the famous Maître fromagier/affineur Antoine in Alsace. Once he presented cheese at a national (!) cheese fair in Paris and took along some Swiss Gruyère. During the tasting, someone said " Monsieur, ce n'est pas Français." "Oui", he replied, "mais c'est grand!" On your excursion, take the road from Aigle over Col des Mosses to L'Etivaz. If you go further in direction to Gstaad, there you should find fromageries offering "Justitaler Hobelkäse" and "Saaner Hobelkäse" in any case. Sbrinz should widely available. If you go for two days, Gruyère itself is nice to stay. During daytime it's crowded by tourists, but in the evening, it's just a normal, beautiful small town. And if you dont' like the cheese, the landscape should be enough compensation for the trip. If you are interested in art, watch out for Rossinière and the fondation Balthus.

But now I remember a pastry (rather a pie) really exclusive: "Appenzeller Biberflade": With Google, I could find Swiss links only. It's from the north-eastern part of Switzerland. It is very popular. It can be really "yum". It's a gingerbread variant, and recipes for the filling are true secrets. This inner core is a spicey almond/hazelnut paste. Do you know such a thing?

I think so. When I was a kid, many dinners had been just "café complet", essentialy a like an real breakfast, or something like Müesli. That's gone, except in families with really young kids. The people here have a speedy way of life. I remember a study that measured the "value" of time in economic capitals in different countries. One of the criterias they applied was precision of clocks in public and semipublic places, the other was pedestrian speed in the inner cities. The clocks here in Zürich were - not astonishingly - by far the most precise, and walking speed was second or third rank. They hurry all the time.

It's a rather dull thing: It's called "cream slice". There are 3-4 layers of puff pastry with filled with a firm vanilla sauce and covered with icing. It's all about the consistency and taste of the vanilla filling. It's not really local or regional in it's layout, but it's different from similar pastries I had abroad. It's a Swiss-German signatur pastry. A bakery can gain not much when doing it well, and loose a lot when screwing up. If a village has two bakeries, the way they do this simple thing can be a divider for the population. As I said, many bakeries have a coffe bar attached. This is a typical "little piece" (as we call such kind of pastries). You buy it in the bakery shop and it gets served in the bar. So if not done well, the bakery is loosing on the coffee bar also. Here are btw, typical bread and buns. The croissant (a bit a distorted instance here) and the bun at the right are the classic bun you eat with a morning coffee. The bread in the background is about 1 lb. It's made by relatively dark flour. It's of firm consistency, not unlike the bread you get in Austria or Germany. It's one of the most badly missed thing, when people are living outside these countries for a longer time. A friend of mine living now in the Toscana buys regularly a bunch of such bread when going home after a visit.

Very interesting. Essentially, that boils down to the problem that fish, poultry and something like veal liver are "sweating" moisture when roasted. Therefore you need a heat source which is capable to develop a lot of energy stream in order to take away that moisture. I'd like to hear slkinsey's opinion on that particular method of cooking.

Thank you, cakewench! Switzerland is a nation of will, and I'm a Swiss of will (hey, almost all my ancestors are or have been foreigners here). We are very serious people, unless we had some wine and are sitting together.

Salü and Grüezi foodie! Hobelkäse it's a full fat, well matured (up to three years!) cheese. Sbrinz (i have explained a bit about it and I love it immensly, even when my grandfather was a ... Parmigiano (!) citizen, that is, not cheese, ) is the most widespread cheese suited for planing. The most delicate and typical Hobelkäse comes from the "Berner Oberland". That's the frontier region just before the mountain peaks (Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, for instance) are elevating up to 12000 ft. This kind of cheese is produced mainly during summer times in many small valleys around there. They got their names from the names of these valleys (a typical AOC case). They all are slightly different, and their aromatic profile can overlap, to make things easier to understand. For me, the more mature ones have a slightly waxy taste and I prefer to consume it paired with white wine, which balances a bit that "oldish" taste. As for chocolate brands, my preferences go more with the individual type of the produces by chocolate brands, not so much with the brand itself. I like "Suchard de Luxe", "Frigor", "Lindt Crémant" and "Toblerone" as the most widely known. But I suspect that nowadays, the recipes vary from country to country. Mit dä beschte Wünsch, Boris

Great! Wrt. to fair use, let's just extract one or two small portions. The "Cuisine is much more than recipes" motto is so wonderfully expressed in that preface.

If I have the opportunity to address a somewhat larger audience here: There are two truly outstanding pieces of text waiting for a translation. Really! One is the preface of the French recipe book of Alain Chapel. It's about 50 pages and would make a great piece of reflections on cuisine and, foremost, about the the culture of consuming it. The other one is a German book called "Les Chefs", witten by a German Anglistic professor living in Aix. It's about the great French chefs of the 20th century. He succeeded in showing how personality, character and and cuisine are connected. It's much more than the usual hymns on chefs. It's critical and still full of admiration. It wasn't a seller in the German book market, but those who read it have been enthuiastic. It's a "now for something completely different" in portraying of the famous French chefs. Is there any interest?

Would "pan fry" do it? I'm not sure that gets across the whole sense of "poêler." Hmm. I tried to look up, of course. In German, there's a somewhat awkward translation like "white frying" or "white braising". Maybe it's really a French notion of a subtle differentiation of a cooking process which has no precise translation. I dunno.

The first weekend of september. I'll report. Just came back from visiting my fisherman. Dinner will be whitefish (powan?) "poêlée" with some basilic infused butter, steamed rice and sauteed string beans. Dessert a local, very popular pastry bought at the bakery. For wine, we'll take a bottle of "Räuschling", a native white wine variety. Almost unknown outside of our region. Lunch was boiled beef sandwich. Whe I accepted the blog, we thought about what to cook. We decided not to change anything in our diet. It is that simple. It's the way we live. Now. Habits do change. PS. Is there a translation for "poêler"?

Yes, walnut. So it's related with food. It was a fairly big tree standing in private garden a bit uphill. It died and we got the trunk. We sliced it and waited 4 long years to get it dry. After planing, the structure came out with a lot of branches and cracks and holes. We decided to take the board leafs "as found". We finished the table after sanding and polishing some weeks ago.

I see, you know about the complexities of ot cultural diversity. BTW, for those who are not sure about the correct pronounciation of "Rösti": it's like "rushty" with an u like in curl. balex, I just had the opportunity to the taste the my first 2003 Pinot Noir from here border of the lake. Incredibly sweet fruit. I think this is going to be one of the great bargains in Pinot Noir this year. This is going to blow away some of the better Burgundy village wines. A producer (an old man now) told me that only 1947 was of that quality. When the grapes had been pressed, he said he'd almost have eaten the marc, it was so sweet and fruity.

Thank you. If true then: WE have, arbuclo, we! Beatrix and me. Still in love after all those years.

It's a 1954 Rock Ola "Icicle" juke box. My 120 selections iPod, so to say. I bought it when I was a student, and I moved that 160 lb over an uncountable number of stairways since then. When you ever watch "Giants", it somwhere there in the coffee bar when Rock Hudson is involved in that ugly brawl.

I am. The kitchen: The rest of the living room

Simple question perhaps, complicated answer maybe. Fondue is an old dish, probably a starter dish. There's a "Fondues, are they naff?" thread where I posted an old recipe reported by Brillat-Savarin, going back to AD 1700 and somthing. Mainly emmenthal cheese, butter and egg. I remember during the 60s, when cheese overproduction became a problem, there had been nationwide advertisment campaigns. I think that was the time when fondue got it's more than regional (French part of Switzerland) status. Raclette is for sure an open air food. I know it from picking a large piece of raclette cheese, boiled potatoes and bread, some mixed pickles. Further a case of white wine and two square sandstones and then going to the woods or climbing on mountain meadows. We made a fire, placed our stones nearby, put the cheese upon the stones and: voilà, the raclette party begins! Got popular with the "right" special equipment at the same time as fondue, from the same reasons, by the same method (advertisment). But the spirit of unusual conviviality remained. Eating from the same pot, eating from the same piece of cheese. Truly a great re-invention for all kind of kids in the age between 5 and 105. Music, just music!

What dishes did you prepare? Were many others cooking for the festival, or just you? There have been about 6 restaurants and some 15 food stands. We all finetuned our offerings to avoid overlaps. The others offerd risotto, fryied fish, gratinated pasta and so on. We had: polenta slices roasted with home-clarified butter (what a difference compared with industrial clarified one) either with carefully concentrated tomato sauce ($5) or braised mushrooms (boletus aka porcinis) à la minute ($7), "Carpaccio di Bresaola" or Prosciutto di San Daniele ($7). Next time, there will be dessert as well (bunet piemontese, $4). Our motto was "Una serata Valtellinese" (an evening in Valtellina style, Valtellino was part of Switzerland until 1815). The artisanal Bresaola was an outstanding find by me on a journey in Valtellino. We had Italians (there are many living in Switzerland) who came back asking what kind of meat this was. They couldn't believe this being Bresaola. It was so much better then everything they had before.

Just made a walk through or village to give an impression of food shopping facilities: One of the local the butchers (cute, no?). He offers a selection of the most popular meats and cuts and some great in-house produced sausages. Specialities (different cuts) on pre-order. Grocery and his fruit/vegetables offerings outside. it's cheese selection , about 50-60 varieties: Inside one of the small bakeries, shelves almost depleted on miday: it's pastry selection: and it's handmade pralinées: Note: our village is about 5 miles from the center of Zürich. Call it a suburb-village, the infrastructure still reflecting the former rural structures. There's also a mid-size supermarket. There are other suburbs, with Carrefour supermarkets (football camp surface) like in France for instance. I think the food variety is more or less about the same, but there are simply more rows of each product.

Good Morning , World Yesterday was appliance day. Now I want to explain a bit about Swiss culinary tradition and history. But I'm no expert, so there might be erronous statements and oversimplifications. As many know, Switzerland has a historic population composed by (roughly) 60% German speaking, 25% French speaking, 10% Italian speeking and 5% Rumantsch speaking people. (These are all offical languages, with some limits wrt. Rumantsch. For instance, our constitution does exist in three languages, and the original text is preceeding any translation. Lawyers, did you hear that?) This diversity is well reflected in culinary habits.The French part is strongly influenced by, you guessed it, France, and the Italian part (Ticino) by the nearby Lombardia and northern Piedmont. The German part (where I'm living) is a bit a different story. The Bourgeoisie (there was no real aristocracy in Switzerland, think more of east-coast elite families) was mainly influenced by French cuisine, therefore much of the historical Swiss-German cuisine is an adaption of French restaurant cooking of the last century. In contrast, the rural population stayed rather with their medieval habits. (We are talking here about 19th century habits and influences). As a result, the dominating Swiss-German part developed no coherent and distinct cuisine. And Switzerland being a rather protestantic country, a certain distain for pleasure and, what people thought, overrefinement was clearly there in the time (50s) when I was born. I followed here dicussions about American culinary habits and tradition and the lack of, and I can tell you, I read many statements reflecting exactly the same attitude. If you ask me about the outstanding Swiss culinary legacy to this world, I's say this is some truly great cheese and some great chocolate. To document the self-esteem for the cheese culture, there's a well known joke here: "Why are there 700 different French cheese variants? Because they still try to imitate Gruyère" As for the chocolate (and pastry), I'd like to stress that in 19th, there have been Swiss in many northern European capitals (Berlin, Copenhagen etc.) running pastry shops and coffee houses at the best locations of the towns. And I heard that one the most famous Belgian chocolate producers was actually founded by a Swiss expat. I'll be back to answer the questions.

And the Swiss, man, the Swiss? We visited Denmark in February the first time. Now we love the Danish. Cool people. Really cool. And we love their furniture. Almost cooler. "Vi er röde, vi er hvide, vi er Danish Dynamide". Or so, yes? (BTW, the Swiss and the Danish are abaout the same size in population . And share about the same flag. You've got some coasts. We've got some mountains.) Correct. And the style is smilar among all those French stoves. The pro brands are Bonnet, Molteni and Morice. Bingo again. We dreamed of a Traulsen. But in an open living room, noisy like a Mack truck? The best solution would have been two remote compressors (Dual-Temp) on the roof. Another motorbike in price. That was too much. Now we have a nice, little, cute fridge. Americans would believe it's a bedroom fridge, I guess. What's that here? Candid camera? We have a Viking. We loved the two knobs. (No joke!) In reality, it's OEM from Sweden I was told. No Microwave. We never liked those devices. We dreamed of a pro combi-steamer (Eloma Joker), but decided that within several years, there will be really good houshold devices. Blind supply lines (water, sewage) are already installed. And we bought American faucets by mail order. Chicago Fauctes. Great quality at fair prices. Our plumber couldn't believe it. Living in the land of Franke and KWC and buying that ancient stuff. But we like it immensly. Simple, sturdy, beautiful. A great find. I wouldn't be astonished if we were the only household in Switzerland having installed Chicagos.

I learned about the Moltenis, we travelled there to the departement of Drôme. We saw the thing and we have been perdus. (head over heeels) There was no Swiss importer, so I ordered it there, paid it in advance and arranged transport and installation by myself. The hassle with the crane to lift this baby was horrible. I almost ruined my balcony door. In the end, I got it brand new for the price of a new motorbike. ( I didn't need a new one since 25 years. I'm still riding my 1976 BMW R 100 S. Old man's old bike)

Nope. After installing the ventilation, all our money was up in smoke. But what my friends have (we live in a two family house) is a an old Berkel "fetatrice" (slicer) These are the huge, manual powered slicers you find in Italian salumerie: a newer variant: Berkel slicer My friend found it - in a garbage container. And fully functionl! So buying all kind of cured meat (Prosciutto di Parma, Culatello, etc) in large pieces is no problem anymore. One reason we bought this stove is that our kitchen is our living room. It's one large, informal room, not unlike the homes of the early Americans and pioneers. We studied the architectural history of "kitchen as space", an found that after centuries of imitating the aristocracy, (separating kitchen and house), it would make sense to get back to the initial primitive concept. When entertaining guests, I always hated the hassle with à la minuute cooking, guests hanging round in a too small kitchen and constantly trying to have a conversation with you. (there's a thread around about that issue). We shifted attention towards rewarmed food. Which is mostly slow cooked food. Now the cook top and the ovens are great devices to rewarm our dishes. Of course, we like to sautée something and to prepare an uncomplicated sauce right in front of our guests. Maybe preparing a risotto or cooking pasta al dente. But as little as possible and only one critical dish. This all was a rewarding decision. Now we cook in the evening before or at midday. We have not much trouble with the worst of all cooking problems: synchronisation of the cooking process, the timing. We cook one by one, with uncritical time overlaps. When the guests arrive, I had a shower and my first sip of wine. I'm sitting there relaxed, just stirring from time to time in one of the pots and shaking a casserole. Passé the time when I was stting there at the table, sweating, stressed because of the alignment of conversation and timing and many times without real hunger to eat my food. And until now, no complaints. We serve good food (we think it's good at least), good wine and have all the time for conversation.

Tafelspitz! You guessed it. The Austrians have about 15 named ways (once about 30!) to cut beef for boiling. And every gourmet has his preferred piece. Tafelspitz is the crown. Boiled beef is popular in Switzerland as well, but with cuts of lesser quality. Whoever is visting Vienna and is curious about this should visit the "Hitzingerbräu". It's called the "temple of beef". But that's Vienna and a different story ...

So did I. It was a literal translation. Could be funfair the right expression? When there are food stands, scooters, outdoor resturants and tents to accomoddate people? Here. every political community has such a fair once a year. And it's really the festival for the whole population. 3-4 days and nights over weekend, and no school for the kids. The "restauants" are usually managed by local clubs (local sport clubs like soccer club, basketball club) or the local fire department. Years ago, we founded a boat club in our quarter (some 30 houses), because mooring lots are very scarce. So we wanted to give a possibilty to every family to enjoy the pleasures of the lake and boating. We bought an old rowing boat, of typical shape for this lake, where you row while standing. I remember forever one summer night, we've been out on the lake with moonshine and clouds and we had a Sauternes Château Guiraud 1990. It was the best Sauternes of my life. Because we live inmidst of that very noisy festival (until 4 in the morning), we choose the "If you can't beat them, then join them" strategy and opened a restaurant as well. We have been about a dozen of neighbours doing this and I was the cook. We served roasted polenta, tomato sauce, braised mushrooms, cut Italian meat (finest Bresaola), local and Italian wine. It looked very improvised and romantic, but our guests had very happy faces. We 've been the buzz of the village and we have been crowded all the time. Many times since then, people ask us to repeat it. And we will.