swiss

A bit of Swiss milk chocolate

maki — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:52:08 +0200

I spent the last couple of weeks surrounded by chocolate bars.

First, I sent out 53 (plus a couple…I lost count) of chocolate bars to the winner of the Menu for Hope raffle. (It was sent out so late because the recipient was away from home.) The winner had requested that the selection be made up mostly of milk chocolate bars. Now, you might think that assembling 50 + different kinds of milk chocolate would be a tough call, but not here! There are many, many more than 50 kinds of milk chocolate sold in stores here - and I’m not even including the kinds with things like nuts or fruit or whatever mixed in.

Then last week, I got the ‘bill’ from my stepfather (who is an accountant) for doing my U.S. tax return. (Yes, all U.S. citizens must file them regardless of where they live.) He wanted some Swiss chocolate - milk, of course.

Nowadays, dark chocolate is in, especially since it’s supposed to be healthy or something. I do like that intense hit of cacao now and then, but I must admit that I am a milk chocolate kind of girl. Nothing surpasses the sensation of a combination of chocolate and smooth creamm melting smoothly on the tongue.

Here in Switzerland, it’s generally believed that the chocolatiers got a bit behind on the dark chocolate craze, and have been playing catchup to the Belgians and the French. These days there are all kinds of dark chocolate varietals and such on the shelves here. But still, Switzerland does milk chocolate the best in my opinion. Sure you can get terrific handmade truffles and pralines in Paris or Bruges, and you could argue that Belgian dark chocolate is better (though I’m not sure that’s true anymore). But a plain, (relatively) inexpensive bar of milk chocolate? Swiss all the way.

Here are a few of the mostly milk chocolate bars that were sent out to the eager recipients (sorry for the iffy photos for some of them, I was in a hurry). At current exchange rates you can just about convert the francs (CHF) directly to US dollars (1 CHF = $1). Going from the least expensive on up:

M-Budget is the ‘no-label’ house brand of Migros, the leading supermarket chain in Switzerland. This full size 100g bar of chocolate is only 50 Rappen, or 50 cents! It’s not bad, quite sweet. I think the package design is quite nice too. (The cheapest not-on-sale bar of chocolate I’ve seen so far is 25 Rappen. That one is not so nice.)

Frey is another Migros house brand. This one has a Euro ‘08 (that’s soccer/football) design on it. Here’s the Frey lineup on the Migros online shop, LeShop.

This is a standard bar of milk chocolate from one of the big makers, Cailler (Nestlé), costing about 1.20 CHF. (They messed around with the packaging a couple of years ago, and had to woo the Swiss public back, but now they seem to be back on top.) A very sweet, vanilla-rich flavor.

This is a bio and free trade chocolate bar from Max Havelaar. Tastewise it’s average, but you can feel righteous eating it.

Swiss Army brand chocolate with guarana, in Survival portions (50 grams, half the size of a regular bar). Obviously aimed at the tourist trade, but nice design anyway!

Villars is a more upmarket brand, and they make terrific, creamy milk chocolate. My mother’s favorite! This is a half-size bar, but they make bigger bars too. The design is very Swiss-cliché, but we will forgive them for that.

Another Villars - milk chocolate with little bits of coffee in it! I love this one so much, it’s a good thing it’s a tad too expensive to buy every day.

Finally, this is not strictly a milk chocolate bar, but it is very creamy and very intense. It’s a house brand bar from Sprüngli, my favorite confectionery store. Made from Cru Sauvage varietal chocolate from Bolivia. The truffles are even more intense, but they go off very quickly (after a week the flavor is already rather faded), so these bars are more durable. Sprüngli online shop.

These chocolate bars are not edible. They’re actually an ad for Lindt chocolates, near the Central tram stop in Zürich.

I have often wondered what it would be like if those bars were real…

(Sidenote: For a while, I was contemplating putting up yet another blog dedicated just to Swiss chocolate. But, my waistline and my teeth told me that the necessary research would be too much for them. So I’ll just have to confine myself to the occasional chocolate outburst here.)

More chocolatey photos in my Chocolate! flickr set.
More chocolate related articles.

Whatever lame April Fools' jokes you may encounter today, there is none better than the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

maki — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:51:38 +0200

Today, you will be encountering many lame (and perhaps a handful of not-lame) April Fools’ Day jokes. But there really is none better, than the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest.

I know I keep bringing it up every year on this day, but it really is that good.

Here’s a fairly acceptable YouTube version:

The attention to detail is quite good too - the boccalini used at table looks very authentically Ticinese!

Also quite funny, and very well made, is the New Jersey Spaghetti Harvest:

More spaghetti related chuckles - allegedly a banned Ikea commercial. Hmm, it’s also time for spring cleaning!

Happy April Fools’ Day!

Swiss restaurant news: blindekuh "blind eating" restaurant group owner honored

maki — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:03:00 +0100

A couple of years ago, I wrote about our visit to a most unusual Zürich restaurant, the blindekuh, where sighted people can experience what it’s like to dine in total darkness. Yesterday it was announced that the founder of the chain Stefan Zappa, was honored as the Swiss Social Entrepreneur of the Year.

According to the story, “The “Blind-Liecht” charitable foundation was set up in December 1998 by Zappa, a partially sighted psychologist, with help from three other blind people.”

It’s still the most unusual restaurant experience I’ve ever had. If you have a chance to visit Zürich, I’d highly recommend a visit there if you want a dinner you’ll never forget. There is a blindekuh restaurant (it seems it’s officially spelled in lowercase) in Basel also.

Swiss shopping news: Get used to happy foie gras

maki — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:22:38 +0100

We received a PR release the other day from LeShop, Migros’ home food delivery web site, that they are no longer going to be selling traditionally raised (with the gavage method of force-feeding) foie gras to German speaking Switzerland. This didn’t come about because of government legislation, but apparently was a decision made by Migros, following the results of customer surveys which were overwhelmingly against gavage.

Indeed if I put in my postal code (which is in German speaking Switzerland) before browsing around LeShop’s site, the traditional foie gras doesn’t even show up. Only a non-gavé version of foie gras shows up. (It looks suspiciously like liverwurst, but I’ll reserve judgement.) Non-gavé basically means that instead of being force-fed, the geese (or ducks) have been gently persuaded to feed. (Maybe they should be sat down in front of a TV with a remote control too.)

Migros is just one store, but anyone who lives in Switzerland knows how much they dominate here, so it’s quite a big deal when they stop selling something for ethical/political reasons.

It all seems a little bit silly though, since you could just go over to to French speaking (or I guess, Italian speaking) Switzerland, or even France, to get a lobe of gavé foie gras if you wanted to. (Strasbourg, which is one place known for good foie gras, is just 2 hours by train from Basel.) Non-chain comestibles stores in the area are probably going to continue to sell it for the time being too, and no word yet on what Coop will do. Besides, I wonder how many of those customers surveyed actually have had real foie gras to start with. The results of the survey cold have been influenced by a recent feature on gavage that was shown the leading consumer reports show on SF DRS, the leading Swiss German TV channel, though I’m not sure if the survey was taken before or after that show.

But I guess the decision was made, either for the sake of P.R or for genuine ethical considerations. In any case, I’m now very curious about this non-gavé foie gras, and will try it soon and report back.

I must say I am not necessarily gnashing my teeth over the foie gras issue, for selfish reasons: I like foie gras well enough, but I wouldn’t kill for it. I like it in its simplest form, poached and sliced, preferably served cold. All those fancy patés and seared foie gras and whatever…don’t do much for me. Now if we were talking about caviar or toro…

It will be a muted Christmas

maki — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:30:40 +0100

I realize that compared to a lot of other food blogs, I don’t get that personal on this blog most of the time. I just wanted to mention though that posting may slow down a bit for a while. I know that I’ve promised some articles such as one on pressure cooking, and I had planned some festive Christmas-y recipes and such. However, yesterday we heard that Max’s mother Martha, who is in a nursing home, has suddenly taken a turn for the worse. So, it will be a rather somber Christmas around here.

My pressure cooker actually used to belong to Martha, until she went into the home a couple of years ago. Except for replacing the rubber gasket, it’s as good as the day she bought it more than 20 years ago. She used it all the time, mainly for steaming potatoes, but for a few other things too. I hope to put those recipes up here in due course.

In the meantime, here is her authentic Swiss cheese fondue recipe, which is the absolute best I’ve ever had. A cheese fondue with crusty bread was always one of our favorite meals to have together.

Swiss food shopping news: The Cheese Club has British cheese

maki — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 19:08:08 +0100

Here’s another bit of food related shopping news for my fellow Swiss residents, expat or not. I recently got an email about a new site called The Cheese Club. They are still in pre-launch mode - the official launch is scheduled for February. One thing that makes they quite interesting is that they are run by an English and Swiss couple and will be selling British cheeses, as well as Swiss and Spanish cheeses. As far as I know, British cheeses aren’t that widely available here in Switzerland (Jelmoli has a limited selection, at least in Zürich) so this could be good news for a lot of people. (There really is no substitute for a good Stilton, for example.)

Although they haven’t officially opened yet, they are already selling a cheese tasting pack, which includes wedges of blue Stilton and Wensleydale, for 69 CHF. They guarantee delivery by December 21st. Could be a great gift for your favorite homesick Brit!

The Cheese Club

Christmas in Japan, Switzerland, elsewhere

maki — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:11:49 +0100

A reader emailed me asking, how people celebrate Christmas in Japan.

My answer to that would honestly be… “Not very well.”

It really has to do with the fact that there is a lack of tradition. Japan is not a Christian country, and the number of people who identify themselves as Christian is miniscule.

And even if you grow up in a Christian household, the traditions are just not there. My father’s family was unique in that they were indeed Christian (both my grandparents were Salvation Army officers, though they both worked at a Salvation Army hospital rather than…religious activities.) But did they celebrate Christmas in fancy ways? Nope.

Christmas in Japan is mostly, or maybe even all, about the decorations and the lights and the special things to eat. By which I mean mainly the ubiquitous Christmas Cake, which is just a regular decorated cake with Christmas-y flourishes. Most Christmas cakes sold at shops have strawberries on them, for the cheery red color. Strawberries in December! Not good. There’s a reason for fruit cake…in December, you mostly get dried and sugared fruits.

Above all though, Christmas in Japan means commercialism. You feel mildly or overtly pressured to buy gifts, even though you’re probably not a Christian and neither is your recipient. The Christmas gift thing gets a bit jumbled up by the tradition year-end gift called oseibo, which is sent to people you want to say thanks to, or suck up to, or generally want to be on the good side of. (In-laws, bosses, clients, and the like.)

So, in my humble opinion, Christmas in Japan sucks. The really magical part of this time of the year is just a week later, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

It was only when my family moved out into the world to live in England and America, then later on when I went wandering around Europe on my own, that I experienced what Christmas could be. In my biased view, Christmas in Europe is where it’s at. (I’m not even accounting for the truly religious parts of that much, such as attending mass.) Christmas in the U.S. is indeed very colorful and cheerful and festive, but it’s also awfully commercial. You have all the Instant Traditions (doing something two years in a row is not a tradition, imho), the rash of special Xmas CDs from various hip-hop artists filling the air, the blindingly colorful holiday sweaters adorning overly ample bodies, and the commercials. Oy vay the commercials.

That is not to say of course that commercialism has not taken over in Europe too. Oh boy has it ever. But still, there are the long-running traditions that keep things grounded. Decorations tend to be a bit more restrained. The food and drink is rooted in old customs. The cold air seems to always smell faintly of spices.

I think I am lucky though: I get to enjoy Christmas, and still follow up with a Japanese style New Year’s. My build-up cynicism melts away, and I think, what a wonderful time of the year it is. It’s also a bitter-sweet time because I am so far away from most of my family. If you can spend Christmas and New Year’s with your family, wherever that might be, that is the best of all.

In no particular order, some of my favorite Christmas things (what are yours?):

Christmas dinner in England. Christmas pudding, mince pies, turkey or goose with bread sauce…
Stollen from Germany, especially Dresden
Real pannetone from Italy, especially from Milan. Once you have tasted a really good, buttery pannetone you can’t go back.
Christmas nougat in Provence, rich with honey
Glühwein, mulled wine, to warm you from head to toe as you totter around a Christmas market
In Switzerland: Wienachtsguetzli, little Christmas nibbles such as Mailander cookies, butter-sugar cookies, and Grittibänz, figure shaped breads…especially the ones from Sprüngli
Lebkuchen, spiced filled gingerbread, from Germany
Handmade Christmas stockings hanging from a mantelpiece, even if they’re empty
The way one of our local bakeries decorates their facade to look like a gingerbread house:

My favorite Christkindlmärkts: in Salzburg, Strasbourg, and Aix-en-Provence. (But if you have to do just one representative market, the crowded and rather overwhelming one in Nurenberg is the one…)
My favorite Christmas decorations: handmade balls made with lavendar and ribbons, from Provence

The best Christmas in New York, my old stomping grounds: the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

Swiss food shopping news: OEM Dolfin chocolate spotted at Coop

maki — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 13:31:23 +0100

(This post is mainly for my fellow Swiss-residents…though if you plan to come here soon, you may want to file it away.)

Both Coop and Migros, the two dominant supermarket chains here in Switzerland, have been trying to push pricey “gourmet” lines of food in the last couple of years. I’ve sampled them selectively - some things are worth the price, like the hearty, rough-surface spaghetti from the Migros Sélection line that I use for spaghetti Bolognese. So far, nothing from Coop’s Fine Food line has grabbed me, but I think that’s changed now…because I spotted a chocolate which I’m positive is an OEM version of one of my favorite exotic-flavor chocolate bars, Dolfin Masala chocolate.

It has the same plastic-and-paper bag-shaped packaging that is sealed with a sticker. It says it’s made in Belgium. Most of all, it tastes just the same! They had Earl Grey Tea and Mint flavors too, which I haven’t tried yet but sound quite Dolfin-like.

So if you are in Switzerland and haven’t been able to get to Globus easily to grab a Dolfin, try your local Coop! (Note that Coop doesn’t have their Fine Food line in all their stores. Try a major one. We got this at the Bahnhofbrücke store in Zürich.)

(Though part of me rather wonders why they went to a Belgian chocolatier for their ‘gourmet’ chocolate bars, with so many wonderful artisanal chocolatiers here in Switzerland…)

Hmm, low-fat artisanal local cheese

maki — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 08:24:26 +0200

I finally succumbed to the inevitable and went to the dentist yesterday, to have a back molar that has been twinging with pain for months looked at. And, as to be expected when you hold off that dreaded dentist visit for too long, my options weren’t good: root canal surgery, or get the tooth pulled. I pondered my choices for, oh, about 5 seconds before settling on the tooth extraction option. (I’ve had root canal surgery once before…never, ever again will I go through that agony).

While it was my lesser-pain option, and Herr Dentist was as efficient as can be, I was still in pain as I got back to Zürich. (Herr Dentist is in Winterthur.) But my spirits lifted when I saw that the Wednesday Speciality Market (Spezialitätenmarkt im Hauptbahnhof) was back after a monthlong summer vacation. I headed straight for my favorite cheese vendor, which sells cheeses made by farmers/cheesemakers in the Züri Oberland region - in other words, very local, all artisanally made and so on.

This time, we spotted something I’ve never noticed before - reduced-fat cheese. Now, I have a built in prejudice against industrially produced cheese in general and that awful plastic cheese that is sold as ‘low-fat Swiss’ in the U.S. On the other hand, I’m always looking for tasty options that won’t keep adding padding to my body where it’s not needed. So we got a couple of small wedges of these slimmer cheeses. And surprise - they weren’t so bad. Not as unctuous as full-fat cheeses, but full of character and very nibble-able.

The only problem is that in my slightly dazed state I forgot to note down the cheese names. I shall do so next time I’m there for sure. Yay I found the names: they were Bäretswiler Puurechäs, a mild cheese sort of like a cross between Emmenthaler and Gouda, and Megerlimuck, a rather salty Appenzeller-like holey cheese. I also got an absolutely marvelous Sbrinz-type hard cheese with the rather un-delectable name Hinkelstein. Despite its name (which apparently means “menhir”), it tastes like the very finest Parmesano Reggiano, with a slight aroma of flowers. Delicious! In any case if you make it to Zürich, be sure to check out the Wednesday market in the Hauptbahnhof, especially the Zürich-area cheese guys. (I previously talked about another cheese they sell, the very pretty Edelweiss, last year.)

Swiss supermarket news: Carrefour sells up to Coop

maki — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 03:28:36 +0200

This news item is probably of no interest to anyone who doesn’t live in Switzerland, but French supermarket giant Carrefour has apparently given up on the Swiss market and sold their stores to Coop (news in German).

Now I am not really surprised. I’ve only been to the Carrefour store near here a few times, but each time I’ve wondered why it was so popular. Okay, they did often have some loss-leader type sales on staple items, a wider variety of cuts of packaged meat, and so on. But if you looked closely, they definitely had some problems: the quality of meat was not as good as at the other supermarkets, especially Migros; aisles were often soiled and shelves sloppily stocked; and as for the produce…forget it. (The worst peaches I’ve ever eaten, or rather taken a bite out of and then spat out, were from Carrefour).

Carrefour was always packed with English-speakers and other non-Swiss type people though. Perhaps because the aisles were marked, unlike the typical Swiss supermarket where you have to sort of scope out the layout of the store before you know where things are. Or maybe it was because of those loss-leader sales items. Carrefour was a supermarket very much in the style of U.K. or U.S. chains in that respect - a ‘big box’ store. In any case it’s interesting to see that this approach didn’t succeed in Switzerland.

It takes some getting used to how shopping works in different countries - when I first moved to Switzerland I was whinging all the time about how the aisles were unmarked, how nutrition labels only indicated numbers by the 100g of content instead of per serving, how Migros (the leading supermarket chain) mostly stocked house brand items and very few name brands. And yes, there was the fact that prices were high, way high, especially for meat. But now that I’ve been here for a while and used to the way things are, certain approaches make perfect sense, and other approaches taken in other markets/countries start to look weird. For instance, whole chickens here are tiny - around a kilo - which is at least one-third smaller than a typical roast chicken size in the U.S. And they cost more. But then, a kilo chicken is more than enough for two or three people, and they are really tasty too. Out of season fruits and vegetables are very expensive - at the moment broccoli is about 8 CHF (around $6) per kilo. But I’ve learned to live with these local ‘quirks’ and even find them logical - so why not buy cheap produce when it’s in season? So we eat lots of peppers and zucchini now, and only get broccoli in the winter - nothing wrong with that.

I suppose though if one were unable or unwilling to go with the flow, it might be difficult. Beef in Switzerland is wildly expensive, so if you had to have roast beef and steaks regularly this might be an issue. Me, I just eat a whole lot less beef, and more of those tasty little chickens.