Tag Archives: farmers market

2: Swiss Surprise

Yawn. Another mountain.

Swiss cheese, fondue, chocolate, watches: These are some of the things we expected of Switzerland. It turns out, there’s a bit more than that.

Start with the spring produce: Switzerland is perched just atop Italy and is only a few hours away by train to the Mediterranean, so that should have clued us into its fresh fruit and vegetable market. The produce here is crunchy and fresh.

We did not expect to see cyclists up on the  mountainside Kleine Scheidegg trail, but there they were, introducing us to another Swiss national oddity – adventurousness bordering on recklessness. They brought the Red Cross to the world, making us think they are a cautious accident-adverse people. They are not. Their idea of safety does not follow a prevention-protocol, which makes sense – it is how they got so good at responding to disasters. They make so many of their own to start with, offering them plenty of training opportunities.

I had no idea that Switzerland has a keen wine industry. South-facing sloped farmland ribbed in vineyards surrounds our town and with French vineyards a stone-throw over the border, it makes sense that the industrious Swiss would get in on the act. As to why it never occurred to us that Switzerland is a wine-producing country: Some joke that it is because the French export their wine, while the Swiss drink all theirs themselves.

There is skiing, of course, but the Swiss are also passionate mountain-climbers, hikers and bicyclists. They love sports. Confusing us even further, they are also proliferate smokers. We cannot understand this.

They are conservative in their conduct, yet they also voted to build a facility for prostitutes to operate their business in Zürich.

There’s more. I knew chocolates heralded from this mountainous land, but so too does CaranDache watercolour pencils and crayons – the funky metal-tinned colours my sister-in-law used to paint clown faces on ours boys when they were young.

Racial and immigration issues headline frequently in Swiss news as the country, like the rest of Europe, copes with the flood of Albanian Muslims that pushed north in the wake of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, as well as Tamils and other far-flung political refugees who fled to Switzerland because of its liberal amnesty program. As Canadians, we are accustomed to hearing about immigration issues, but we had no idea that step-for-step, Switzerland has the same national debate going on that we do.

They love festivals, and they are crazy about music. It’s not just yodeling that tickles their ears: I have never seen such a large concentration of accordion players anywhere. They beat out the Americans when it comes to marching bands – they have them all over the place, some in costume and organized, while others who look like they decided to take their band practice out of the garage and on to the street, just for fun. The quality of music played by buskers here is outstanding. I am sorry to say it, but most of them would put Victoria buskers to shame.

What surprises us the most, however, is that such a geographically small place has such a globally large footprint – from the Red Cross to the United Nations to its international market for banking, pharmaceuticals (Roche, Novartis), watches, Swiss Army knives and more. They are a stunningly successful people who from so little have made so much.

But back to chocolate, more chocolate businesses than Lindt call this place home. So, too, does Toblerone, Frey, Nestle, Cailler, Camille Bloch, Favarger and more – it explains why despite the occasional scandal, Switzerland’s brand continues untarnished. After all, who can stay mad with a place so packed with chocolate?

93: Biel’s Alstadt – Worth Another Look

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Biel/Bienne, our small town in the heart of Switzerland’s watchmaking district, home to Rolex, Swatch, Swiss Timing and a bunch of other timepieces I can’t afford, has a lovely old-town, unique in Europe for this one fact: It has not succumbed to franchise retailers.

The street-level storefronts in many European medieval districts are jammed with H & M clothing, Bata shoes and Ochsner sporting  shops. It makes for a lively people-packed tourist quarter, but it does take something away. Biel has tiny little shops with not a single franchise name in sight, which I find more charming than I would have expected, being a such a devotee of the expected and ordinary as that I am.

The downside is that this part of town is really most vibrant on Saturdays when a huge farmers market takes up the main courtyard and the little chocolatiers, butchers and flea-market stores are open. The upside is it feels more real than the brand-name endowed and much-populated avenues of Lucerne and Zürich – although both those cities are amazing and must-see stops here. I’m not trying to deride any urban council’s attempts at revitalization, just making an observation.

Take a look in the slideshow above. See if you can find a McDonalds.

 

 

Biel/Bienne Market

We made up our minds where to go yesterday, but no time to write about that. We’re off to Bern and Fribourg in a few minutes. Before we go, here are some more photos from the colours at yesterday’s Biel farmer’s market.

The contrary thing about the Swiss is how they support their local farmers’ markets, not out of a sense of duty or economic inbreeding, but because of an ingrained belief that no product, grown or manufactured, can best a Swiss one. I say it’s contrary because buying local food in Canada is an act whereby the buyer is making a statement about themselves, more than saying what they actually think of the product.

I could be wrong about this, but also, I could be right.

Consequently, in Switzerland’s stores the high-priced local Swiss strawberries (5.50 to 8.50) appear to sell out as fast as the lower priced Italian/French/Spanish ones. (2.50 to 4.50), and so it is for everything else – at least, that’s what I’m told.

We haven’t visited the local farmers street market in more than a month, and it seems to have grown as summer nears.

Later this week, we’ll tackle the question of whether Dave really has a job here.

Buckets and buckets of flowers.

Carrots caked in Swiss dirt.

I've never warmed to the idea of dining on meat left to hang out on a hot day for hours. Also, what the heck is that amber coloured stuff on the right?

An IBM Selectric - vintage 1978, if memory serves. We saw a lot of old junk at the market, but not a lot of people buying it.

I would love to bought this Monarch typewriter with a French keyboard, but that would have gone against our "pack light" motto for our time here.

The market has expanded higher up the 16th-century cobblestone streets as summer nears.

The grey metal roundish thing on the right is an old-fashioned bed heater/water bottle (for only five franks). Oooh, comfy. The market has many vendors selling old stuff - some looks vintage, some looks like junk.

Biel/Bienne's farmers market.

Three varieties of cherries at Biel's Saturday farm market.... they are probably all Swiss, but it is possible they allowed a few Italian or Spanish ones in.

In Switzerland, the garlic knows enough to fall into formation.

I don't know what the 3.50 is for, but we saw loaves priced at eight franks. Yikes.