Swiss Roots

At the main train station in Zürich there are often promotional giveaway events and recently these bags of chips were being handed out.

Terra Chips is an American company, and in the last few years they have started licensing production a few European countries, Switzerland being one of them. They appear to personalize some of the limited editions, for example, this one here is sold as "Swiss Roots".

I'm a fan of their apple chips, and these root vegetables are quite yummy as well. Sugar beets, beets, carrots and yellow carrots make up the mix. 

Men in funny pants

There are a couple of topics of interest here.

1. In Switzerland it is possible to buy hard-boiled eggs in the grocery stores year-round. They're called Piknik-Eier -- picnic eggs -- in the German-speaking parts.

I mention year-round, because in some countries, during Easter, such eggs are available for sale. I'm curious to know in which countries one can buy hard-boiled eggs all the time -- are you in such a country? Drop me a note if you are, or know such countries.

2. Now about the stickers on the eggs. These eggs are advertising the upcoming Schwingen festival which takes place once every three years. Schwingen is Swiss-style wrestling, which is also called Hoselupf, literally pants-raising. And that brings us to the funny pants in the title. The participants wear "wrestling pants", over their normal clothes, and it is the belt on these pants that have to be used to bring down the opponent.

Turns out that there are also Schwingen competitions held in the San Joaquin valley, in Ripon, California.

For technical details, visit the Wikipedia page:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwingen>

Wild berries

Wild berries growing along the side of a street in Villigen. 

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Vegetables and eggs for sale

Direct sale from the farmer. This one sells various types of vegetables, potatoes and eggs. I haven't a clue what the first line used to say.

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Grape trunks

A little play on words today. The grapevines around the area have been trimmed in the last few days and I found this stack of logs, if that's what they can be called.

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Blackbird, camouflaged

After a long stretch of overcast skies, we finally got a break a couple of days ago. Of course I had to sieze the opportunity to get some photographs.

This blackbird was looking for sustenance in the compost heap near Volg (20080601 frisch und freundlich), the village shop. Note the orange and banana peels. Such tropical fruits were once so uncommon and dear in northern climes, now no one gives them a second thought. One day later this year, I'll tell you about the new tropical-greenhouse project in a place called Frutigen. There the warm ground water (100 liters a second, at 20°C) that flows out of an immense tunnel through the Alps is used as the primary heat source.

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Corny free

Still lingering over the topic of language. I don't know whether this is limited to American English, but to me corny means trite or banal (English speakers from other parts, please weigh in). I suppose one could view these particular 'free' cereal bars as being original (website of the product is here).

I had wanted to put together a post about the Dreikönigstag (three kings, as in the Magi) that is celebrated here today, but obviously that didn't work out. Next year, maybe?

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Munder saffron

So, here's the treasure at the end of all that toiling. This is from the harvest of 2006. I should have used it up sooner as it loses its potency with time.

Saffron risotto, saffron spaghetti, saffron spatzle, saffron cheese, saffron fondue and saffron parfait are some of the items served at Restaurant Salwald in Mund. We sampled everything except for the cheese and the fondue. Paella (Spain), bouillabaisse (Provence), saffron bread (Cornwall) and other baked goods (Sweden), rice pilaf and biryani (ranging from Iran to South Asia) and milk-based desserts such as kheer (South Asia) use saffron.

Some of my readers have posted their recipes in the comments to yesterday's post, and I'm expecting a few more to turn up today. I'll collate them and put them on my overflow blog sometime in the next couple of days. In the meantime, here's one of mine:

Semolina 'vermicelli' dessert (South Asia)
makes 4 half-cup servings

I'm calling it vermicelli for lack of a better name, it's actually made from semolina rather than durum wheat that is used to make the Italian vermicelli. See this Wikipedia article for more information. It's very thin and is available in Indian shops. Yesterday I did an experiment to see how the pasta labelled vermicelli in my local supermarket would work. The answer is: it doesn't work well AT ALL!! The dish had the correct delicate flavor, but the mouth feel of the pasta was wrong. And while some versions of this dish will firm up when chilled, mine didn't so I would serve it in stemmed glasses and provide small spoons.

60 g vermicelli, in 3 cm long pieces
12 g almond slivers
12 g cashews, broken into small pieces
12 g raisins
half-liter whole milk
4-6 tablespoons sugar
1 pinch saffron (roughly 10 whole threads)
Optional: 1 tablespoon rose water

- Toast the vermicelli until it turns light brown. I did this in a little butter, but that's not really necessary.
- Bring the milk to a boil. Lower heat, add the sugar and stir until dissolved.
- Put in the rest of the ingredients and simmer until the vermicelli is cooked through and the milk is slightly thickened. Be sure to stir regularly to prevent the milk from scorching.
- Remove from heat and stir in the rose water, if using.
- Chill overnight in refrigerator.


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Excursion: Slope with saffron fields in Mund

Here's a view looking down one of the saffron slopes. The land serves a dual purpose as rye (Roggen) is grown on it for part of the year to combat weeds.

If you look carefully, you might be able to make out some buildings way in the lower distance on the right hand side of the photo, just above the trees in the foreground. As I mentioned earlier, Mund lies at 1200 meters (3937 feet) above sea level and the valley is at 700 meters.

Here's a short video (in English, 2.47 minutes) on the swissinfo website about the saffron in Mund. Very nice images, do check it out:
Swiss Saffron

Some of you have mentioned that you're familiar with certain dishes that use saffron. If you have the recipes and would care to share them, I'll do a special post tomorrow.

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Excursion: Saffron field in Mund

The saffron crocuses grow on sun drenched slopes in poor, well-drained soil. They're harvested from mid-October to early-November.

Saffron probably originated in the Fertile Crescent region (Wiki link). No one knows for certain how the first saffron corms came to Mund. The Arabs were cultivating saffron in Spain by AD 960 (source: The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson) and one popular theory states that pilgrims brought them to Mund from Spain in the 1400s.

Saffron harvesting is hard labor. The flowers, and subsequently the stigmas, must be picked by hand and it takes 70,000 blossoms to produce one pound of the dried spice. The Mund yearly output is 3 or 4 kilos, and almost all of it is consumed locally.

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Excursion: Saffron harvest in Mund, Valais

Saffron crocus. Crocus sativus. The crimson stigmas dry to form saffron threads, the most expensive spice in the world. Native to West Asia. Wiki article here.

One of the many unexpected things I've learned about Switzerland is that saffron is grown in the canton of Valais/Wallis, in the little town of Mund, elevation 1200 meters above sea-level. More tomorrow.

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Grape harvest

The grapes on "our" hill were harvested this past weekend.

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Zwetschge

Plum (Zwetschge) of some sort. This is a photo that I've been sitting on thinking I would find some information about the fruit before making a post, but that hasn't happened. Here's an old post about some other sort of plum (I think):
20070721 Damsons for sale

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Pears

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Framed

One of the trees from yesterday's photo is visible in the background. And that's corn/maize growing on just to the right of the path in the foreground.

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Tractor amongst the grapes

Well camouflaged.

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With apologies to ...

... the now-trite motivational poster.

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Destination unknown

Unknown to me at this time -- I'm trying to find out a little bit of what happens to Swiss crops and specifically what happens to the stuff grown around here. Since this is probably barley rather than wheat, it's probably headed to become food rather than a fuel of a different kind.

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Crops with chapel in the background

Addendum: I think many of us have had the issue of food shortages and food price increases on our minds. I came across this story in the Guardian about a leaked secret report from a World Bank study that estimates that it is the diversion of crops to biofuels that has increased food prices by more than 75% (the US government claims that the push for biofuels in the US and the EU has contributed to only a 3% increase).

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Picking strawberries

Today, I found a couple of people harvesting strawberries at yesterday's site. These wheeled seats roll along the spaces in-between the rows and above the plants. They can also be fitted with a sunshade to provide shade for the person.

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