The local customs, culture and foods of Switzerland
Swiss Foods | Swiss Domestic Life | Special Occasions | Meals and Customs | Food Glossary
If the Swiss have a gentle but perceptible air of superiority, it is well deserved. For over 675 years, Switzerland has maintained her status as an independent nation – no small feat for a nation in the heart of Europe.
Switzerland is made up of 22 separate cantons, each almost a country in
miniature, with its own history, food specialties, local government, and
even a distinctly local dialect. The 6.7 million Swiss profess membership
in 18 faiths (but predominantly Protestant), 3 main ethnic groups –
Italian, German, and French – and speak 4 languages – German, French,
Italian, and Romansh. Although German predominates, most Swiss can speak
several languages, and the Latin-based Romansh is spoken mostly in the
Grisons area.
This diversity in ethnic background and languages, as well as the number
of distinct areas, is a unique situation, for no other country as small as
Switzerland can claim such a patchwork, and a peaceful one at that. In
fact, it is probably because each Swiss is a member of a minority group
that they are so tolerant of other nationalities, languages, and
lifestyles. However, their national tolerance stops short at any
indication of autocracy or bureaucracy; it is believed that true Swiss
will sell their souls to no one.
So loyal are the Swiss to their hometown that marriage outside of their
canton is considered a "mixed marriage." Emotional and traditional ties
are strong: the family comes first, then the hometown, the canton, and
finally Switzerland itself. Swiss society like Swiss loyalty is
traditional and well ordered, and perhaps this too is a factor in
individual security and self-confidence.
The Swiss characteristically rise early and work hard and often late
hours. Quality and value-for money are basic concepts. They expect this
same seriousness from everyone else and will not tolerate either shoddy
work or inferior products. More than half the population is engaged in
agriculture in small rural areas; the rest are involved in a diversity of
specialized industries such as watch making and precision machines and
tools. Yet Switzerland suffers from a chronic labor shortage and each year
approximately half a million laborers are imported from other countries,
even from as far away as Greece and Turkey.
It is also no accident that some of the finest chef and hotel
administration schools are located in Switzerland. Not only do the Swiss
have a penchant for education and culture, they are also famed for their
hospitality and politeness. Customers are always considered as personal
guests and their comfort and happiness are of prime importance. Guests
enjoy warm, clean surroundings, bountiful food servings, and a surfeit of
"good days" and "thank you" as well as the idyllic scenery of picturesque
towns, green valleys, and snow-tipped mountains. Yet although their chef
schools teach "haute cuisine" and their hospitality is all-inclusive, the
Swiss are quietly reserved in their friendships and domestic life and
prefer the simplest of menus.
Swiss life, as Swiss food, is very much influenced by neighbors: France,
Germany, Austria, and Italy. Specialty dishes from each of these countries
have long been intertwined with local regional specialties to produce a
simple but substantial cuisine centering on soups, breads and nourishing
cheese, egg and vegetable dishes. Recent trends in foods have attempted
more exotic fare adapted from Chinese and Malaysian cooking but retaining
mildness in flavor.
One of the most successful "food movements" was started by Dr.
Bircher-Benner in Zurich. He invented muesli, a combination of toasted
oats, shredded dried apples and nuts. His movement stresses the inclusion
of fresh salads and wholegrain cereals, but it is muesli that has attained
almost a worldwide reputation as a "Swiss breakfast."
Switzerland is many things: mountains and lakes, specialized schools and
industries, a peaceful mix of people and languages, a huge wheel of Swiss
cheese or a chunk of smooth Swiss chocolate. But probably most of all,
Switzerland is people – people who have learned more than any other nation
in the world the consummate art of blending tolerance and politeness with
innate simplicity, to end up with a subtle sophistication entirely Swiss.
It is a phenomenon as incredible as their mix of foods adopted from other
countries. Somehow, in Swiss hands, these foods become purely Swiss.