Cheese and Chocolate

So, though I still have hopes that there will be many more food adventures to come, I may as well tell you about what we’ve experienced so far. First, the lacks. Switzerland does lack several things available in the good ol’ US of A. Allow me to list the ones I remember at present.
1. Baking powder
2. Corn syrup
3. Cream of mushroom/chicken soup
4. vanilla extract
5. jello
6. brown sugar
7. cheddar cheese
8. frozen juice concentrate
9. chocolate/butterscotch chips

So, I’m saddened that I can’t make chocolate chip cookies (no chocolate chips or brown sugar), scotcheroos (my favorite treat ever—no corn syrup, choc/butterscotch chips, although I did see rice krispies in a store the other day), orange julius, many casseroles and things that involve cream soups, etc. Luckily I knew about the baking powder issue and brought a package, but I should have brought more. Supposedly you can find some of these things if you go to certain stores, such as Globus in Bern, but they’re not exactly readily available. I was going to make my own brown sugar with some molasses, but haven’t found that yet either.

Anyway, moving on to the Haves. Switzerland has many delicious things I never had before.

1. Chocolate. Swiss chocolate. Mmmm. Sometime I will take a picture of the chocolate aisle in the grocery store. It is huge. It will make you drool.

2. Cheese. Many many many kinds of cheeses. Here we are eating many kinds of cheeses with our friends.

3. Raclette. Raclette is a cheese (a very delicious cheese), but it belongs in its own category because it is also a meal. You get a raclette cooker-thingee and you heat it up. You each have little pan-thingees and you put your slice of raclette on it until it gets nice and melty and bubbly. Then you take your pan and scrape the cheese off with your little wooden scraper onto your potatoes. You can add mushrooms or onions to your melting raclette for extra deliciousness. Wyatt, please come visit. I don’t want you to die of envy of this cheesy goodness. Look closely and you can see the raclette grill thingee.

4. Biercher Muessli. A traditional Swiss meal for breakfast or light supper, introduced to us by the Burris. It’s just Swiss granola in yogurt, which isn’t novel, but you see, the yogurt here is fantastic. It’s not like American yogurt at all, which I don’t even like. It’s super creamy and thicker and tastier. Also, they have this stuff called quark which is like yogurt but different. I’m not such a fan. We’ve become fans of biercher muessli and all the kids love it.5. Horse meat. Yes. Available at your local butcher.

6. Rivella. It’s a carbonated drink. Brett likes it. I don’t.

7. Some icecream stuff that is DIVINE that I’m not even sure of the name of yet. So, when we were at Brett’s boss’ house for New Year’s Eve (called Sylvester here), his wife offered me some icecream. It was plain vanilla, so I secretly wasn’t that interested. You see, I love icecream, but I love it when it’s a good flavor –not plain vanilla—mixed with milk, or with some yummy chocolate sauce on it. Not plain vanilla. BUT I decided to take some to be polite. And OH. MY. GOOOOODNESS it was the most delicious stuff I’ve ever tasted in my life. I can’t even explain it except it was more custardy than icecream we’re used to. I believe she said she bought it from a dairy store, but I’ve got to get Brett to ask her what it’s called so I can get some more.

8. Sausage. YUM. Me likey sausage. And the hot dogs are better here. Potatoes and sausage. Sausage and potatoes. Yum yum yum.

9. Nutella. I’m addicted. Basically it’s the bottom food group of the food guide pyramid for me. Now, I realize that Nutella is available in the States, and I loved it before. But I never really bought it because although I liked eating it plain by the spoonful, I didn’t think it went well with bread. But here, with crusty crusty, chewy chewy European bread, oh my. That is breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert for me. We’ve been here 4 weeks and are almost through our 5th big jar of the stuff. Brett says I have to cut back, but I say, why?It’ s very very good on banana bread too. When I first put some on banana bread, Brett said, “That’s an abomination!” But then he tried it and liked it. (I think he was just exasperated with further consumption of Nutella, not the idea of it on the banana bread.) And the missionaries came and they had 3 pieces and liked it too.

Talmage likes it too.