3. Food

Food plays a basic role in the cultural and social development of people, of course. This is expressed in any sayings, proverbs and customs. Proverbs like: “The way to a man’s heart is trough his stomach” and “ A man works as he eats” show that still nowadays popular thought still assumes that food influences the whole person, that one is what one eats.

Swiss cuisine originated like every regional cuisine in the world, namely, from local fruits, garden vegetables and the product of local domestic animals. At one time that was very little, since Switzerland was a poor country before “The Discovery of the Alps”. From very little available to eat, the housewife had to use all her skills and imagination to add variety to the menu. And what she managed to conjure up out of milk, chees, bread, corn, millet, fruits and later, potatoes, is amazing and full of variety – it is the foundation of Swiss cuisine!

In Switzerland, breakfast typically includes bread, butter or margarine, marmalade or honey, maybe some cheese or cereals, plus milk, cold or hot chocolate, tea or coffee.

Lunch may be as simple as a sandwich or a birchermüesli or it could be a complete meal.

Depending on what people had for lunch, dinner can be a full main course or just some bread, cheese, maybe some dried meat or any other light meal.

Drinks range from plain water, over different types of soft drinks including most internationally well known brands plus some local products, to a great variety of beers and wines. Hot drinks include many different flavors of tea and coffee.

Some traditional famous dishes:

Bürli (small bread): Bürli are small breads served for breakfast or at BBQ parties.

Birchermüesli: was invented around 1900 by Dr. Bircher, a pioneer of the biological health medicine and an early promoter of unprocessed food that retains its full nutritional value ("Vollwertkost" meaning "whole foods diet")

Fondue: this is probably the most famous swiss menu. Fondue is made out of molten cheese. We eat it by dipping small pieces of bread in the molten cheese. The secret lies in the right mixture of different flavors of cheese. Typically, fondue is served on cold winter days, but many restaurants serve it all round.

“Apfelküchlein" (deep fried apple cookie): taste great either warm or cold, with or without vanilla sauce

"Brunsli" (Swiss brownies): a traditional Swiss Christmas treat.

"Zimtsterne" (Cinnamon cookies) are another traditional, very delicious Christmas treat.

Rüebli Kuchen (Carrot cake): It could be made as a cake - as shown here - or even more often as a pie. Often, it is decorated with little carrots made out of marzipan.