Le Tour de Tout Cochon or the pork from head to tail...

     Sundays in Lausanne are a limited menu. Museums are closed, cafés close early. It's still quite warm. We decided to head up into the mountains. School is in session, autumn is at hand, tourists are fewer. An hour of fast train got us to Martigny, on the Rhone, above Lac Leman. Another hour, first on a Swiss funicular, and then on a French one, got us to Chamonix-Mont Blanc.

     The scenery is the sort that makes you laugh with delight. Pure verticality everywhere you look: Slopes stripped in shades of green below mountain tops lapped in permanent ice and snow, sunlight playing on clouds as they play with the peaks.

     Chamonix in summer is like any ski town in summer. The streets are lined with postcard shops, and stores selling clothing with labels like Sun Valley. By now it was hours since breakfast. We ambled off to a side street. Eventually we saw a sign for a restaurant with local specialties---this is France, Savoie region, in particular. Examining the Maison Carrier menu, we noted two things. The restaurant had been awarded Michelin's Bib Gourmand category---googd value, worth a detour. More importantly the price for a three or four course meal was about half than an ordinary restaurant in Lausanne. 

     A table was available at noon. We waited in the garden, drinking kir royales and citron pressé and reading the menu. Once choice was Tout Cochon - the whole pig, including the trotter, something I'd heard a lot about, but never eaten.

If not here, where?

     Even before the terrine arrived, we were presented with an enormous pat of butter, bread, dried charcuterie, mustard and a crab paste. Somewhere I read a plaintive explanation of American bar-b-que: when you cannot dry meat easily, you must smoke it, and serve it with a sauce to replenish some of what's lost in the heat of the smoker. Well, I come down on the side of smoking, and this region comes down on drying. Ah, well, they make up for this fault with their cheese.

     In any case, the terrine was, to employ that overused word, unctuous. The chicken liver added some oomph.

Homemade terrine with chicken liver,
onions candied in the balsamic and mushrooms in vinegar.

                

     Next came the black pudding. So rich, so delicate. I'm used to it having a sausage casing and being a bit dry, this was not in the least. The bacon, pear and onions with the sautéed potatoes, just the sort of sweet and sour to cut through the richness.
   





So there she blows, the pig's trotter. A lovely crust. I'm ignorant of how to proceed, and pretty sure I went about it all wrong. Fork in left hand, steak knife in the right, all I seemed to do was produce bones, with no meat adhering to them at all. A great deal of work to extract a few morsels of deliciousness. There really was no need for the gravy boat of Béarnaise, do you think? 

Grilled pig's trotter with béarnaise sauce

    The main course was a very nice piece of pork, which had been cooked in the manner of a daube, and then scorched a little. The tomatoes and olives again added some sour to the dish. However, as good as the accompanying gravy was, I will go for some pulled pork bar-b-que, if you care to send some to this realm of air-dried-sliced-shoe-leather.

Slow cooking pork filet mignon with olives and tomatoes,

mashed charlotte potatoes with virgin oil.

Where Street Food is Food Truck Food

     Friday morning early, I charged up the hills outside our apartment to the Park called Mon Repos. Famous in Lausanne as the place where the philosopher Voltaire stayed when he visited, its also home to one of the city's pools. As my summer swimming hole by Lac Leman will close in a month or so, I wanted to investigate this indoor pool.
     Uphill I can do with the hips. Downhill, with the knees, is the killer.
     I checked out the pool. It's just 25 meters.
     Wandering across the street, I chanced upon Les Loges De Gout, which is the brain-child of Julien Lerouxel. He is a chef who conducts cooking classes and trains chefs. The operation reminded me of Joi Chevalier in Austin and her Cook's Nook, so I stopped to chat.
     Turned out that all were frantically preparing for Neuchatel's three day Street Food Festival. Julien was putting together the sign for their offering:

This seemed like too delicious an opportunity to miss; after all Neuchatel has been named Switzerland's City of Taste for 2017.

     So bright and early Saturday morning we hopped a train to Neuchatel, about an hour north of Lausanne. The Festival was held in the plaza opposite the yachting basin.

     It was about 11:15, and things were just getting underway. We made a bee-line for MIAM BAO, and sampled.

Delicious!

Interesting to see the contents of the mise-en-place. What I took to be tamarind, turned out to be fig chutney. Perfection in the vegetarian bao, with the fresh goat's cheese. Fusion, but a perfect match to Switzerland's dairy products.

     Fortified, we made a tour. By now, the plaza was filling up: couples with children in strollers or on push bikes, dogs, teenagers. There must have been two dozen food trucks, arranged in three rows. Tents provided shade for tables and chairs in between the rows. 

     Many of the food trucks were converted Airstream trailers.  

     

   The converted ski-lift gondola stood out, as did its hand-pies:

          The most unusual offering was salmon, smoked on the spot:

The health department in San Francisco will never know.

     As for variety: Japanese, offering Hiroshima style chicken; Korean, offering chicken lollipops; Thai-Chinese, which is a common combination for brick and mortar restaurants here; Indian; Middle Eastern; Peruvian, offering ceviche; Two Mexican, offering tacos and churros; Vietnamese, offering what appeared to be banh mi:

Fusion Sandwich: Swiss beef on its bed of salad, with a revisited Nuoc-Mam sauce, coriander, mints and peanuts. And note the swiss potatoes to make the belgian fries.

And, of course, four trucks selling hamburgers. 

     You are probably wondering who was doing the cooking? Suffice it to say some chefs were persons of color and non-Europeans. The eaters were locals. And the food was good.

Another Kitchen, Other Markets

Another Kitchen. Collage. Lucey Bowen, 1994

     In about a month, my husband, children and their significant others will gather as paying guests of my son's most extraordinary college friend, whom I'll call Mister J.
     Mister J is a Renaissance Man, multi-talented, perennially learning something new. He is also DaVinci's measure of a man, a multi-sport athlete. Mister J, since we've known him, has explored the world, investigated airplane disasters and high finance.
     He decided that he wanted to go to cooking school, and so he did.
     We will gather on the outskirts of Parma, and their will be twenty of us. Under Mister J's direction, we will market, we will prep and we will cook! He's asked us to suggest dishes, as we would for a private chef.
     What should these menus be? Should we consider the marketing first? Here in Lausanne, so much is available that almost any cuisine could re-created. Will Parma's market be similar or different?
     And of course, what will the kitchen be like? I hope and pray that it doesn't have just electric heating elements. I hope there is cross ventilation. My spousal unit is unwilling to leave knives to chance, and so will invest in some new ceramic ones to take along, as we go by train.
     At first, I was planning to opt out of cooking, and just document this epic, but as I imagine mountains of pesto, with the best of olive oils and Parmesan cheese, I know I can't resist cooking. Hands on, apron on, knives at the ready!

Cowbells

With every bite they take, cow music they make.

     I noted the musical sound of cowbells as I walked to Lac Leman. An editorial in the Sunday paper presented views of the cruelty or kindness of cowbells. The author ended by observing that the cows had not been asked for their opinions. Actually, evidence was offered that cows rely on the bells to identify members of their herd.

      Horrifyingly, the last two Sunday papers have included summaries of the dozen deliberately set fires that have killed cows, horses and ponies, as well as hay and other crops, in the farming country north of Lac Leman.

     The farmers are depressed and frightened. These are not factory farms and the families know the cows as individuals --- milking them twice a day. The farmers have taken to leaving their barn doors open, so that if there should be another fire, the cows can escape.

     Psychologists have pointed out that there are two kinds of fire-setters: incendiaries set single fires for revenge. Pyromaniacs are addicted to the thrill of their work, and act in serial fashion.

     With the uncertainty of weather and prices, the stress of all night vigils isn't what the farmers need.

Can the Farmers and the Restauranteurs Be Friends?

Les paysans nient voler le pain des métiers de bouche (Farmers aren’t stealing bread from chefs) said the headline in 24Heures, one of Lausanne’s daily newspapers. Lausanne is not San Francisco, where certain restaurants have come to fame in supporting small farms. Lausanne is surrounded by farms of all sizes, but nothing like the Central Valley, or Watsonville, where factory fields churn out strawberries like so many Legos. Restaurants here serve much local produce, but the famous Lac Leman trout is too expensive for most, and so its imported, sometimes frozen.

Intrigued, I gave the article a careful read, meaning that I had my dictionary and the person sitting next to me in the café helping to translate.

It seems that an organization of the owners of cafés, restaurants and hotels, called GastroVaud, and other of butchers, bakers and confectioners, feel that direct sales from farms compete unfairly with their own highly regulated businesses.

For their part, the farmer’s organizations point out that their direct sales are miniscule compared to the volume of the supermarkets, CoOp and Migros. They think that the businesses of butchers, for example, do not do well because in trying to compete on price, they offer no service. Nor will Butchers pay the price for meat that the farmer can obtain by selling direct to customers at the farm.

Much government in Switzerland operates at the Cantonal level, the equivalent of the State level in the U.S. The Canton of Vaud brought the groups together, as they share the values of authenticité and proximité, (Yes, exactly what they sound like in English.) and should be playing for the same team.

Addicted to Market Cheese Tarts

The Queen of Tarts

It is all her fault. She is at the Lausanne Market on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the smaller Pully Market on Fridays, always with her portable ovens, and always making these tarts with unconscious competence.

I don't know her name yet, but her tart is my sinful breakfast. She loves what she does; she told me so. In a few months, when my French is improved, I hope to interview her when she's not working.

Fortified, I set out to accomplish what I took the #8 bus at 8 in the morning to do: salad ingredients. It has been stiflingly hot for the last week, and we have been supping on salads. One night, chevre chaud; you know, little warm goat cheese on croutons broken up into nice Balsamic Vinager and olive oil dressing. Another night, a sort of Chef's Salad.

In vain I searched for those strange tomatoes, the Cornue des Andes. According to one market lady, the Lausanne market can sell only products grown in Vaud, Lausanne's Canton; the Cornue must be grown in France.

Instead I got a hefty yellow tomato, which I expect will be sweet. Two others, with a bit of the point end of the Cornue, were Belle de Bern. I picked up herbs , potatoes, mixed lettuces with edible flowers, carrots and strawberries.

The market's treasures.

When the #8 bus dropped me off at Alpes, I strode determinedly into the patisserie. At first, I was seduced by the apricot tart, apricots are in season. Instead, for a once a month indulgence, I chose the Pear, called a Napoleon. Why it is nothing like the pastry I think of as a Napoleon, I cannot tell you. I think a thin slice of it, with a few of the strawberries, will be heaven. In case you were wondering, resemblance to the Driscoll's variety was undetected.

N.B. After the market, I swam for 45 minutes.

Another Year, Another Kitchen, Other Markets

Tomate Noire from France @Evian Market

Tomate Corne of the Andes @Evian

     

Exactly a year since I posted about food!   

  

     

True, I was researching and writing about it for the next six months, for the Oxford Symposium of Food and Cookery. A year later, I'm in another small country that starts with an S and specializes in banking. You guessed it, Switzerland. The Swiss National Day comes just before Singapore's, but the Starbucks here featured no Swiss National Buns. La Chocolaterie Wuthrich did. It's across the street from our front door, with display windows next to the bus-stop we use every day. They looked like hot-cross-buns, filled with raisins but no icing.

This year, Swiss National Day was celebrated on a Monday, which meant a long week-end, and two days when Wuthrich and just about all of the sidewalk cafes were rolled up tight. It was also very hot; in an not-Swiss, more-like-Singapore way.

   
So we took ourselves out on the water, catching a morning ferry across to Evian, yes, where the water comes from. Not one of the CGN "Belle Epoque" boats, but a more utilitarian craft.
   

After a coffee, and well hydrated, we found Evian's market in full swing. Along the lake shore avenue, vendors of clothing, dry goods and shoes lured shoppers with SOLDES. (Sale!)

Further up the hill, we chanced on something I've not seen or tasted in too long: nougat. This was nougat with an appetizing range of flavors. It started me thinking about the origins of nougat. Was it the Turkish Delight that the witch in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," used to tempt the little brother? Yes, Wikipedia tells me: "The origin of nougat dates back to the 12th century, where it first appeared on Middle-Eastern documents. It was named Halou (“sweet” in Arabic). Phoenicians crossed the Mediterranean Sea with it, and from this crossing Nougat spread over the European continent." 

 
There were honeys of every possible flower, and seven kinds of tomatoes. Corne des Andes was a mystery. Turns out it is ancient, and Incan, Cornue de Andes, shaped like a horn. I'd never seen it before, and cannot wait to try them from tomorrow's Saturday market in Lausanne.  It took me a week to think through Coeur de Boeuf, (Beef Heart). Translation of Beefsteak? 

Beefsteak

Comparing the markets of the two prompts a lot of thought. As I wrote in my Oxford paper, Singapore, having no rural hinterland, imports almost all of its food. Over the causeway from Malaysia and Thailand, or through the docks, produce, meat and fish are distributed to the "wet markets" that fill up the lower floors of "cooked food" or Hawker Centers.

   
 Switzerland has a hinterland, but nothing at the market comparable to "hawker centers."  Contrary to my assumptions, it is not all mountains. There are great swaths of bottom-land where all manner of grains and vegetables are grown. Terraced hill-sides along the lakes produce wine grapes. You will remember from Ancient History that Rome colonized the region. Its citizens grew rich from farming and commodity trading.

The modern Swiss are very conscious of country of origin, and issues of organic and sustainable farming. And as in some American supermarkets, even the chains are conscious of consumer's desire to know where there food comes from.

   
And of course, there's cheese. Lots of it. We had cheese tarts for breakfast, so in the name of testing our axiom that you have to work hard to eat badly in France, we had lunch here:

       

There is really only so much cheese a person can eat.

     I believe in the theory that Chop Suey adheres to rules of its own, no matter where its made, as in use only canned or frozen ingredients, with the exception of corn starch. To test this theory, I ordered it.

Chicken Chop Suey

As it turns out, we must have worked hard, very hard. My theory of inherent Chop Suey proven, in this sample of one.