Last week the spirit of Christmas descended on Zürich in full force. True, the grocery stores have been featuring Christmas products at least since October, but now everyone is in the Christmas mood.
Christmas trees have appeared in virtually every plaza, and many evergreen trees have been decked out with lights. It is finally socially acceptable to listen to Christmas music! (Thankfully, since I've been listening to Christmas music secretly for a few weeks...) With the start of December, everyone has an advent calendar. I even got my first one from my flatmate, Georgie, so I get a little chocolate for every day in December until Christmas. And everyone is getting ready for the visit of Samichlaus, the Swiss version of St. Nikolaus, on December 6.
Since this is Switzerland, one of the things that comes along with the Christmas season and the cold weather is the cheese meal. While restaurants offer meals such as
cheese fondue and
raclette all year, only tourists eat such things in the summer. One gets so warm while eating these meals, between the warm, gooey cheese and the presence of a small heater on your table (fondue pot or raclette oven) and the wine and/or schnapps and/or hot tea that are consumed to aid in the digestion of all that cheese. Not to mention that these meals are pretty heavy and not totally summer appropriate.
I, being somewhere between a tourist and a non-tourist, flout the normal cheese meal timing rules and eat fondue and raclette all year, although often it has been when
I am hosting visitors. Or when it is
55 F in July.
In general, everyone has a preference for either raclette or fondue. I am more of a raclette person, although fondue has been growing on me recently. I think I just like that you can personalize your raclette experience more than the fondue. Also, I like pickles.
I would say that real cheese season started around mid-October with
our trip to Sion and raclette dinner. Followed by a fondue dinner with my small group on our
weekend in Thun. Now the cheese season is in full swing, and I'm really in danger of being totally cheesed-out.
Last week my flatmates wanted to have a Christmas fondue meal for our last evening together before Christmas. However, I begged them to consider something else, as I had a fondue tasting the following evening. And a raclette Christmas party for work the evening after. Cheese is good, after all, but definitely in moderation. Luckily, Stef and Georgie agreed to forgo fondue, and we had a nice Christmas pasta meal.
The next evening, the research group that we share a lab with organized a joint fondue tasting evening, which featured 7 different kinds of fondue! I never knew that there were so many different kinds, but it seems that each region has their own speciality. My favorites are Vaudoise (100% Gruyere cheese) and chevre (goat cheese) fondues. It was fun to hang out with some people from other groups in our building, and, thankfully, since it was a tasting, there wasn't so much cheese involved.
The next evening was a Christmas dinner for
our research group. We had a big raclette meal and white elephant gift exchange that was really fun. I even won the jackpot in the white elephant gift exchange- a huge poster map of Switzerland! I love maps, so I was pretty pleased.
Thankfully, since then I've had a break from cheese, although I am visiting
my friend Aurore in Strasbourg this weekend, and fondue has been threatened. And Stef still wants a Christmas fondue.
Welcome to Christmas in Switzerland, I guess.
