I think the best ones in Zurich for really good varieties of in-season stuff like Italian tomatoes are the major ones - Helvetiaplatz and Buerkliplatz. Jack from Laughing Lemon does an excellent summary most months about what in season at the markets. I think he lists it in Daily Life or Other/General.
I can commiserate, coming from farm country myself. Our produce diet became a lot more varied - not to mention tasty - after I started frequenting the markets, either a neighborhood one close to our home, or the Hauptbahnhof one in Zurich on Wednesdays, or the big one on Oerlikon Saturdays. It takes some organizing and planning around work, but it's proven worthwhile for us.
I've been reading all the posts complaing about the fact that Swiss food seems to consist of cheese and potatoes (with the occasional gherkin thrown in for good measure) and very little else.
What is probably not known by many people is that Switzerland - until pre-WW2 times - was in fact quite a poor country, with very little FLAT surface for agriculture, and that the farmers in the mountains were (up to quite recently) very poor indeed, for the most part. Therefore, their staple food was what they produced themselves = cheese, bread, potatoes. As a result, cheese fondue (traditionally old stale bread dipped into melted cheese to make it edible), raclette (cheese melted in front of the open fire and eaten with boiled potatoes) etc. have come to be seen as "traditional" Swiss food, when in fact it was more of a necessity to survive than anything else.
You think of Italy, you think of pasta. What's that? Flour, water, some oil, rolled out into 1001 different shapes and boiled. Put some squashed tomatoes over it and you have the typical spaghetti. Food for poor people, which now has become "traditional" and trendy in all its different forms.
If you go into either a Migros or Coop today - and I'm not talking about speciality foodstores, but just run-of-the-mill supermarks - the selection in fresh produce in most larger towns is good. Go into a normal butchers or bakers and the choice is not usually worse, but probably a lot better than in many similar stores in the UK that I've been in. If you buy tomatoes out of season, then you must expect them to be "hors sol" or greenhouse - whether you buy them in the UK or here in Switzerland - meaning that they haven't seen a single ray of sunshine. No surprise that they are pretty tasteless.
Sorry - I don't want to tread on any toes in my first post in this forum, but having lived in Switzerland for the best part of 26 years, I do think that the general standard of food you can find here is good to very good.
Good post Mopp. I learned quite recently that fondue, although it might have had humber origins as you mention, is in fact a marketing product, something that was pushed by cheesemakers in the 30's to ensure sales of excess products and, at a time of little sense of national identity, it was seen as useful to create a "national dish".
Thanks Exotic: you may be right in that cheesy foods were pushed to market off surpluses once the concept of marketing took off. I was thinking more about the origins of the dishes. In fact, I've been told that (back in the 19th century) Russia donated emergency supplies of potatoes to the Canton Glarus because they had a famine there - similar to Ireland.
I will check out these markets. To be fair, the tomotoes in Calif. most of the year are not very good. We also needed to find the Farmer's Markets and specialty stores, but since I was a native, it was not too much effort. We are getting by here just fine, but always looking for new sources and tips from the natives or those "in the know."
fduvall
I am actually quite interested what the "average" Swiss person cooks for his/her family on a daily basis. Restaurants are often not a good reflection of what people eat daily, but on special occasions. When I lived in Sweden 25 years ago with a Swedish family, I grew to like their favorites; the daily stuff and the treats. But as i do not live with a Swiss family now, I do not have much visibility into the daily diet.
Would love to hear from the Swiss on the boards here...and maybe some recipes! BTW - I like cheese/pork/potatoes
fduvall
One can eat well in switzerland....one just has to know where to go and of course willing to pay as usually it can get expensive....
there are some suggestions and recipes for everyday Swiss food (including a few from Mr. Bartholemew) on this thread:
There's a good recipe thread with a few traditionally Swiss recipes here:
http://www.englishforum.ch/other-gen...ecipe+exchange
Aside from the usual cheese/meat/potatoes and variations thereof, pasta, vegetables, and salad always seems to be present on the tables of Swiss people I know. I too am from California, and the fresh, local ingredients here are a welcome change. In the fall, we get all of our squashes from a local farmer a few minutes up the road, and I use the automated fresh milk dispensers that are growing more common on milk farms every now and then. (It's unpasteurized, so be warned I guess, but it tastes better than any milk I've ever had.) We'll occasionally buy meat from local farmers as well. A short drive in the countryside and you'll likely find a few of these places. (Usually unstaffed, you just drop your money in a cashbox on the table.)
It's pretty hard to pinpoint a typical Swiss diet, it changes from one linguistic area to the other and is influenced by the big country next door, so in my parts, Geneva, there is a big French influence (French regional cooking, not the "haute-cuisine" that most people seem to think is the staple diet of the French) but also Italian, for a Genevan, going for a pizza is the equivalent of going for a curry for a Brit. I might as well tell you what I cooked for the missus and I tonight
Roast chicken, shallots, garlic and parsnips with lemon and herbs
Pan fried spatzli with spring onions and garlic
Aside from the parsnip which is unknown (sadly) in Switz, that's the kind of stuff I would also do in Switz. Along with loads of pasta, meat dishes, soups and the likes. A salad with every meal is also pretty standard.
swiss kitchen is bland as is english kitchen.
If you are fairly well travelled this is obvious. What both of us can do well are good old hearty dishes to warm yer cockles on a Winters night.
Oh and i will concede im an aromat convert (no) thanks to my swiss miss. I do use it selectivley though which still makes me an ausländer
I think you have a better deal when in the French part of the country, in term of tastier food but I would say, wouldn't I.
The Swiss-Italian stuff is very much on par with northern italian cuisine (butter, not olive oil say).
My English wife quite likes her aromat too, but we try to go easy with it. She had a revelation with the Maggi sauce, for some reason
According to this article the UK has an obesity rate of 23%. Switzerlands is below 10%
Have you seen the number of people exercising here, cannot remember seeing that many in UK, especially up north were the obesity is a real problem
Came from Malcantone before moving to bern and I say the swiss italian cooking is on par with italian cooking....I beg to disagree with the butter thing though its also used in most part of northern italy.
Yeah, that's what I meant Aurora, I did not express myself very well
My mother's family is from the Valtellina area in Italy and it's polenta, cheese, buttet, salami, breasola and pizzocheri territory there, quite different that the "standard" Italian cuisine.
Worst food I ever had was in Scotland.
Here in Switzerland, you should buy your meat from the local butcher.
What's the deal with drenching salads with litres of salad sauce here? I write sauce, as opposed to dressing, as that's how it appears. Even the poshest restaurants seem to pour rather than 'dress''. Is it just me?
Not just you this time.
I have heard that Brits even eat salad with no dressing. Could be that you are oversensitive - expecting so little? There is no such thing as too much in the States. Some people even ask for extra on the side. I have a gf who practically gargles hers!
In other world news....
I have just eaten the worst bowl of cereal in my life - Bio Hafernüssli. Does it just totally suck or was it the combination of Asugrin-sweetened skim milk and cracked flaxseed topping? Whatever the case, it's too early to be sitting here with a mouth full of mushroom flavor.
WT, can you let us know some more .... what were you eating & where ?
I had brilliant food in Scotland, my meal at the Three Chimney on Skye or even in smaller restaurants in the Western Isles were delicious and the Scot have finally realised it's a good idea to keep what are amongst the best meat and fish products for themselves rather than export them all.
In the UK, you do have a helping of limp salad on the side of your dish, it's just there as a decoration and no one but silly foreigners like me eat it, with a bit of mayo or salad cream. I agree they do oversauce a bit the salads in Switzerland.