Swiss Watching Page 19

  Put Swiss in front of the word cheese and you’re probably now picturing exactly this: a big slab of yellow rubbery stuff with holes in it, the kind that Jerry runs into when hiding from Tom. This is Emmental, to give it its proper name (Swiss cheese is the insipid generic term used across North America) – the cheese with the holes, the cheese that is one of the iconic symbols of Switzerland, the cheese that tastes as synthetic as the plastic it’s wrapped in. Surely there must be more to Switzerland’s most famous export than that? The hole cannot be the best bit. Time to discover the truth about Swiss cheese, the hole truth, and where better to start than Emmental, the biggest cheese in Switzerland.

  WHEN NO MEANS NO

  With some notable exceptions, such as Baby Bel and Stinking Bishop, most cheese takes its name from where it’s made: Roquefort, Cheddar, Edam, Gorgonzola. Unlike those, Emmental is not a town but a region of central Switzerland near Bern, with the river Emme at its heart. The name becomes clear once you know that the German for valley is Tal, not far removed from the English word ‘dale’ (German ts often change to English ds: trinken means to drink and unter is under). That makes Emmental scarily close to Emmerdale1 in meaning, though perhaps Wensleydale is a better analogy. There aren’t too many crashing planes, exploding buildings, lesbian love affairs or murders in peaceful, rural Emmental. This is Switzerland, after all.

  Since there’s no town called Emmental to aim for, it’s not obvious where to go and how to get there. It doesn’t look very far on the map, about 30 kilometres east of Bern, but there’s no one place that looks to be an obvious starting point. A visit to the Bern tourist office is in order, which proves to be less straightforward than anticipated. My request for some information on Emmental, possibly the most famous part of the local area, gets a shake of the head and a sorry smile.

  ‘It is too far away,’ the man explains.

  I am so taken aback that I’m left spluttering. ‘But it’s part of Canton Bern, a really famous part. You must get lots of people asking about it.’

  He nods. ‘Sometimes.’

  By which he probably means every day. Most Swiss people understate everything from their own wealth to the winter temperatures. If they say they only speak a little English, they’re probably nearly fluent; just a few people in the market, and you know it was packed. The Swiss never oversell themselves or anything else. Even with this proviso, however, I had presumed that the Bern tourist office would actually have information about other places in the same canton. This was somewhere on the doorstep, a place which attracts thousands of visitors a year. It would be like me going into the York tourist office and being told that the Dales are too far away to be of interest. He seems to notice my incredulity and tries to explain.

  ‘We have not the room,’ he says, his voice echoing round the huge space where we are standing, ‘because we need it for the informations [sic] on other parts of Switzerland. This is the capital city so we must have things about Ticino or Geneva.’

  As polite as he’s being, I can see I’m getting nowhere. A no in Switzerland is always a no; it’s never a no disguised as a yes or even a maybe, even though Italy is just across the border. And it never changes. Before I leave, I ask where to find information (no -s) on Emmental.

  ‘You should go there and ask in the local tourist office,’ he suggests.

  I sigh. Of course. I have to go there before I can find out anything, even though I don’t really know where there is.

  Finally, he says something helpful. ‘Start in Langnau. They will help you.’

  With something concrete to go on, I smile and leave.

  According to the timetable, the local train takes 40 minutes to cover the 33 kilometres to Langnau,2 probably because it stops at every cowshed along the way. After that, with train lines few and far between in Emmental, it’s either getting around by bus or calling in the cavalry. My parents are over from England for a visit. With a car. I dial their number.

  IN SEARCH OF CHEESE

  The first stop is a mere two minutes out of Bern main station, and my fears of the train stopping this frequently begin to grow. Nevertheless, when I see the station name I have to smile. It’s my favourite place name in the whole of Bern: Wankdorf. What a great name for English speakers to laugh about, even more so because most Swiss just don’t get it. But there’s more. Wankdorf is the Swiss Wembley, home to the national stadium, grandly called the Stade de Suisse, as if they know that having international matches at somewhere called Wankdorf is just asking for trouble. It hosted the 1954 World Cup final, won by West Germany, but that old stadium was demolished in 2001 (it really is like Wembley) to make way for a new 32,000-seat affair that is all solar roof panels and clear sight lines.3 Its biggest events so far have been the Euro 2008 championships and a Robbie Williams concert. You can guess how much he enjoyed saying that name. The rest of the time it is home to Bern’s football team, which has the unlikely name of Young Boys. You couldn’t make it up. Young Boys playing with balls at Wankdorf. It almost makes Sheffield Wednesday look like a normal name.

  It never takes long for the countryside to appear on a Swiss train ride – the cities just aren’t that big – and on this route the countryside is majestic. The backdrop of snow-dusted mountains looks too stunning to be real, almost as if a giant artist decided that the green foothills and wheat-filled fields weren’t picturesque enough, so he painted in a monumental horizon. Nowhere in Switzerland is very far from the Alps, but sometimes it’s easy to forget they are there: out of sight, out of mind. The Swiss have perfected that art; it still takes me by surprise.

  On most maps Langnau appears followed by i.E., and once there you realise what the letters stand for, making it very clear that this is the place to start any cheese trip: Langnau im Emmental. It’s a modest country town, with a sprinkling of old wooden buildings, flower-laden balconies, sturdy churches, small shops and a supermarket. Rather like a British market town of similar size, only with fewer brick buildings and free parking. Tucked away in a hideous modern building that’s out of step with its grand old neighbours is the tourist office, with its informative Emmental Cheese Road map/guide. Out of sheer curiosity I ask for information on Bern. ‘Too far away’ is the now familiar answer, as if I’m asking about Outer Mongolia.

  A horn beeps behind me; the cavalry has arrived, and we head off in search of the cheese with holes.

  INTO THE HEART OF EMMENTAL

  We take to the back roads and it quickly becomes clear how hilly Emmental is. I was expecting something much flatter, with plenty of open fields for all those milk cows. True, there are lots and lots of cows (and not many sheep, making it doubly different from Emmerdale), but most have to graze while sloping uphill. Or down, or maybe even at an angle, but rarely on the level. It shouldn’t be a surprise, given that the Alps are just an hour to the south, but these really are big hills. In any other country they’d probably be called mountains, given their height. The one behind Langnau climbs up to 1036 metres, which is not much smaller than Mt Snowdon, but compared to that craggy bleak rock this looks like a cuddly hillock covered in green velvet. Then again Langnau is 643 metres above sea level, making the ‘mountain’ appear to be a hill of only 393 metres. Everything is relative.

  Even with the lumpy landscape, much of the countryside is farmland, though on a small scale. No vast tracts for combine harvesters to churn through, no long-distant vistas of rippling cornfields, no miles of polytunnels shining in the sun. Instead, semi-wooded hillsides crowd in on the rushing streams, cows munch away in lush sloping meadows, and the farmhouses appear at astonishingly regular intervals. A decent-sized back garden looks bigger than some of these farms, but they more than make up for it by having the largest farmhouses I have ever seen. Each is like a vast wooden barn with a tiled roof the size of a football pitch sloping almost down to the ground on both sides. The hugeness of it is offset by rows of dinky little windows beneath the overhanging eaves and geranium-filled boxes across the whole of the A-shaped f
ront. So photogenic, so Swiss.

  The scenery is too inviting, and the weather too agreeable, so we downgrade lunch from a slap-up restaurant to an outdoor picnic, complete with the best thing Swiss supermarkets sell: hard-boiled eggs, cooked, cooled and ready for just such occasions. They’re even called picnic eggs on the packet. What a great idea! And they have prettily painted shells, like at Easter, so that you don’t get them confused with raw ones. Such is the Swiss attention to detail. We tootle north, following the Emme downstream through a trail of villages, each looking as if they’ve only just realised the twenty-first century is here. Take away the few trappings of modern life, such as the asphalted road, cars and overhead wires, and much of Emmental wouldn’t appear to have changed in the last few decades. And in that, it isn’t so different from anywhere in rural Switzerland.

  A SLICE OF COUNTRY LIFE

  While the world around it has been travelling at a hare’s pace, Swiss country life has been taking the tortoise route, preserving its traditions while adding a few modern comforts here and there. Flag-throwing festivals, yodelling clubs, traditional costumes and folk music: the customs of the past are very much part of present-day life, and almost every community has its own variations that are treasured and celebrated as a matter of course, not as something wheeled out for the tourists.

  For example, in areas like the Bernese Oberland or Appenzell the herding of the cows up to the high Alpine pastures in spring is cause for great celebration. Cows are decked out in flowers, bells and flags, and often compete in beauty contests, with the winner being queen for the summer. There’s another chance for a procession and a party in the autumn, when the cows are brought back down again. For sure, it’s a popular sight, with many townies coming for the day, but it’s more about doing things the way they’ve always been done. Even if that means having to listen to, and claim to enjoy, Hudigääggeler, the Swiss version of oom-pah-pah music, usually played by a trio of men on an accordion, a double bass and a clarinet or tuba. After about two songs it all sounds the same, but the Swiss love it, so much so that it’s often on television, at prime time on a normal channel, not at 3 a.m. on some cable network watched by 17 insomniacs.

  Then there are the three traditional Swiss sports, Hornussen, Schwingen and Steinstossen, all summertime affairs. A mad mix of golf and baseball, Hornussen is a team game, where one side catapults a plastic puck into the air while the other team tries to bat it down with giant paddles. It’s particularly popular in Emmental. Schwingen is rustic wrestling that takes place outdoors in a sawdust ring. The Schwingers are usually big men, cheesemakers or carpenters in the real world, wearing what look like giant hessian nappies over their clothes. The winner gets a wreath or a cowbell – no cash prizes here. Just as burly are the Steinstossers, who hurl stones as far as possible. It’s like shot putting, except that the stones range from 4 up to 50 kilograms. Every three years all three sports, along with yodelling, alphorn blowing and flag throwing, take part in a Schwing- und Älplerfest, a sort of Swiss cultural Olympics. The Schwingen winner is crowned the king of the Schwingers and wins a prize bull. After becoming Schwinger king for the third time in 2007, carpenter Jörg Abderhalden was voted Swiss Personality of the Year4 – that’s how big the sport is.

  Nothing seems to change quickly in Switzerland, which is exactly how most Swiss like it. Come back in 20 years and it’s highly probable that lunch will still be at midday, Hudigääggeler trios will still be playing at cheese festivals, and the shops will still be closed on Sundays. All that is what makes it a fascinating place, full of a living sense of history and such a feeling of community that I wonder if it will ever change. Of course, progress has a will of its own, so that even the most traditional parts of Swiss society have to move on.

  CHEESE IN THE MAKING

  Old and new seem to be able to coexist quite comfortably in Switzerland, and one place to see them together is the showpiece of Emmental cheese-making: the dairy at Affoltern (also an i.E. village). Here you can, along with coachloads of overexcited Swiss grannies, watch the famous cheese being made and learn all about the process from multilingual handsets. Separated from the cheesery by huge plexiglass screens, you can look down on the vast vats of swirling milk and still catch a whiff, especially downstairs where the huge cheese rounds sit in storage racks. It’s like sticking your nose into someone else’s shoe.

  I now have the recipe for perfect Emmental cheese. Take one cow. Feed it 100 kilograms of fresh grass per day, mixed with 85 litres of water, and let it ruminate. Milk twice daily, giving you up to 22 litres of the white stuff. Add rennet and stew at 32°C until it coagulates. Slice with a wire whisk and gently heat to 55°C. Pour the curds into a mould and press for one day, turning it occasionally. Immerse in a brine bath for up to 24 hours. Leave to ripen in a cool, damp cellar for a minimum of four months, regularly turning, washing and rubbing the cheese. Slice and eat.

  It takes 12 litres of milk to produce one kilo of Emmental,5 which means that an awful lot of milk goes into a whole Emmental. It is truly a big cheese: each round is one metre in diameter, about 25 centimetres deep in the middle and weighs up to 120 kilograms.6 That’s why you almost never see a triangular wedge of Emmental; it’s always in oblong blocks because pie-slice-shaped pieces would be 50 centimetres long. Not too handy for the average cheeseboard. As for the holes, they are actually trapped CO2, released by the bacteria added at the final stages of production. The technical term for the holes is eyes, which must make Emmental the peacock of cheeses, and their size can be controlled by changing the cooking temperature or curing time.

  Hole technology is not the only thing I learn in the show dairy. I also discover what a difference an ER makes, and it’s nothing to do with George Clooney. Emmental is, apparently, the generic name for holey Swiss cheese made by that method, wherever it’s produced. But Emmentaler (with an extra ER) is a protected brand, made only in a specific area of Switzerland, using raw milk less than 12 hours old and coming from cows fed with fresh grass or hay.7 Each round is numbered so its origin can be traced, and each has the AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée) stamp of approval, just like certain wines.

  The wonderful thing about most Swiss cheese is that it’s made on a small scale. Cheese is not a cottage industry – Switzerland produces 181,000 tonnes of cheese every year, about a third of which is exported8 – but much of it is made in the hundreds of village dairies using milk from local farms. True, most dairies have embraced modern technology; they’re not all still cooking milk in copper pans over wood fires, though there’s a chance to see that at this dairy. In an old wooden house, a suitably rustic gentleman is making cheese the traditional way, in an enormous cooking pot hanging over a fire. Even away from the cheese-making room, the building reeks, almost as if it’s actually built of cheese. Maybe it is, like a Swiss version of a gingerbread house, and it’s only age and the smoke that make the walls look like brown wood.

  THE CHEESIEST TOWN AROUND

  While Emmental is the archetypal German-speaking Swiss cheese, Gruyère is its French-speaking counterpart. Together they make a perfect fondue, which can be a half-and-half mixture of Emmental and Gruyère. Two languages, two cheeses, both Swiss and both used in the ultimate Swiss dish, French and German combined in culinary harmony.

  In a country full of picturesque towns, few make a better first impression than Gruyères (the town name, unlike the cheese, has an -s for some reason). High above the valley floor is a castle perched on top of a craggy rock, with a cradle of higher hills all around. Think Rapunzel meets a mini-Edinburgh. Swiss castles tend to be more fairytale than militaristic. Instead of battlements, keeps and curtain walls, you get towers topped by dunce’s cap roofs, covered ramparts, and a core that is more château than fortress. Gruyères castle fits the part but also manages to look quite forbidding, more Dracula than Rapunzel.

  Like every Swiss town Gruyères can be reached by public transport, but since it’s out in the sticks between Bern and Lausanne it
’s a long, convoluted train ride from anywhere. The solution is to go by car, and once again my family comes to the rescue. Overflow car parks, one mainly for coaches, line the road up the hill and are already dotted with vehicles. Car park number one, beside the town walls, is full even though it’s only mid-morning and this isn’t peak season; imagine the crowds in high summer, when Gruyères receives most of its one million annual visitors. Not bad going for a place with only 170 permanent inhabitants.

  Gruyères is actually quite small, more village than town, with just one street – but it’s quite a street. Wide enough to hold a football match, its cobbled expanse first slopes downhill to a central fountain and then up again, narrowing dramatically to squeeze through the castle gates. Handsome mediaeval buildings run down both sides, their stone walls nearly all whitewashed, their eaves overhanging, their window boxes bursting with colour. As an ensemble it is almost too photogenic to be real. It looks like the set for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and I half expect the Child Catcher to come rattling through in his black carriage, cracking his whip and sniffing for children.

  Look a little closer and it’s clear that almost every building is either a restaurant or a tourist shop, which spoils the aesthetics a little. Dairy products of every description spill out on to trestle tables outside each shop: cheese, cream, fudge and, my personal favourite, confiture de lait. This Swiss version of dulce de leche (a smooth caramel spread) is perfect on fresh, squishy bread; it’s nothing short of heaven in a jar.

  All the restaurants have terraces opening out onto the square and seem to have the same menu, involving 101 ways to eat cheese. It feels like walking down Gerrard Street in London’s Chinatown and trying to find a restaurant that offers something different. I always thought Chinatown was actually one giant restaurant, with a central underground kitchen and little trains transporting all the food around to the different dining rooms. Perhaps Gruyères is the same.