How do you feel about Swiss Food?

Hello Fellow Food Lovers,

Today we ventured out in the Zürcher Oberland. We went to a really lovely family run farm http://www.juckerfarmart.ch/ in Seegräben about 30 minutes east of Zürich city. This little gem was recommended to us by one of the expat mums at the quartier treffe in Enge. It is a 'selber pflücken' fruit farm. For those of you still brushing up on your German it is a 'pick your own' fruit farm.


It reminded us so much of Farmer Johns place http://www.branstratorfarm.com/which made me pause for a few minutes to recall the sweet sweet syrupy taste of that first strawberry of the season and of course his 'Incredible' corn.

So we went a picking. We had the choice to pick lovely plump cherries and racy red strawberries. The farm is laid out very nicely with fruit trees and the occasional trampoline for the wayward children we tote along. As we licked our fingers whilst picking the cherries I thought to myself that these shockingly ruby/black berries (grown on this amazing farm) were a tribute of what 'farm to fork' is all about.

We lazily rambled on to the strawberry patch and I daydreamed of the days when we would scramble around Farmer Johns place searching for the nicest plumpest berry, savoring each sweet moment as the berries went from lips to tummy knowing this season only lasts for a millisecond each spring.

I was jolted back to reality when my grubby little son squealed like a stuck pig from the fence surrounding 'strawberry land'. He had greedily stuck his fat little toddler hand through the fence 'reaching for gold'. After grabbing a hand full of the precious red gems and smearing most of them all over his clothes and face, he had spared one for me. I closed my eyes and tasted the perfectly ripe berry. There is only one word for it (here is Switzerland) Köstlich. (Delicious).
We picked a punnet and headed back to the barn where we had some ice cold beer, a loaf of warm crusty bread and a plate of very local 'farm' cheese and cold meat and spent a very lazy Sunday afternoon basking in the Swiss sun.

There is an ongoing 'flavour debate' we have engaged in since we landed several months ago.
Ron, being the one that holds the experienced (and expert) palate maintains the Swiss grow the best carrots he has ever tasted. The carrots have not overwhelmed me since we arrived here but of course I do trust the taste buds of Chef Wise. I popped back into the barn store and bought a small bunch of dirty freshly picked (Swiss) carrots and we did a taste test. They were petite, illuminous orange, crunchy and quite tasty. Ron is still drooling over them. So, root veggies may be getting what they need from the soil and perhaps a few more hours of sunshine would help bump the fruit to that next level of flavor nirvana that we still crave from back home.

The Swiss are known for using only the best products when it comes to cooking. It is true. Every store you go to and market you stroll through, you see locally grown or raised, bio (organic for all you foreigners), free range, grass fed - on every label!

The food here is kind of like its people, and they are perfectionists. Not an once of fat on the most carefully selected veal chop, not a blemish on the local and very seasonal fruits and veggies and everything tastes great. However, I am still more than thankful to have my own personal chef traveling by my side for all our edible adventuring. He makes the 'amazing' out of what most think is ordinary. Lucky girl, I know.

Signing off for today,

WiseMona