Food

So, I truly don't have enough experience with Swiss food yet to make much intelligent comment. But, I'll make a few observations.

We've already covered that the cheese is amazing. My Emmentaler is almost gone, so I will branch out a bit and have some new cheese to report tomorrow. The gorgonzola and mascarpone is simply amazing spread on crusty brown bread. Works for breakfast, lunch AND dinner! Yesterday in the farmers' market, I passed a booth that was full of all kinds of cheese. None of which I've heard of before, and I thought I knew cheese! I've put the farmers' market on my to-do list for next Saturday and the cheese booth will be a priority stop.

The chocolate really doesn't need my references, since it's pretty much famous the world over. If you're not a chocolate fan in the U.S., it's because chocolate in the U.S. is, well, mostly not really chocolate. In fact, I don't even like U.S. milk chocolate. But, I can't eat enough of it here. I've been limiting myself to two pieces per day, but I did cheat tonight and have three. Hope I can get into my car tomorrow, to say nothing of my pants!

On the "I'm not sure if I'm into this" list, would be the pizza I had last night. After nearly two weeks of real cooking (those who know me will laugh), it was finally time for me to go out to eat. And, since I'm still too inept to order in French (I actually can order, I just can't understand a word I'm told), I settled for making myself a frozen pizza at home. So, I chose a pizza by the picture because, even though I can stumble through reading some French, this box was German! But, it looked something like chicken and tomatoes and mozzarella. Upon first taste last night, it really tasted more like tuna. But, I was hungry, so down it went. This morning, I dug up the box to see if there was any French on it. Yep, on the back of the box, sandwiched between the German and Italian was a phrase that I interpreted to mean, "you will love this if you like fish." uh huh. Run to my French dictionary and translate the word I did not recognize, which ended up meaning "tuna."

Tuna on a pizza. Huh. I will not judge.

Which brings me to my final thought on food today. While the Europeans are freaking out because they think we Americans will end up with three livers and alien babies because of genetically modified food, I am a little more worried that I will end up poisoned here. Perhaps, as the daughter of a veterinarian, I have a bit more knowledge of pathogens than I should. The grocery store refrigerators are not very cold, and I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the fresh cheeses are made with unpasteurized milk. Which explains why it did cross my mind that the tuna pizza really WAS chicken. Fortunately, I could not think of a pathogen that made chicken taste like tuna, so I carried on.

Happy to report I am still alive and well fed, but still not sure if I will buy that pizza again.