Recipes from the French part of Switzerland:
Papet vaudois (Leeks with sausage): The dishes of Canton Vaud tend to be particularly filling: pork sausage, leek and potato hotpot. If you ask a Vaudois what - apart from Saucisson - the typical dish of the canton is, you will usually get the answer: 'Papet vaudois', leeks with potatoes, served with Saucisson, and/or with 'Saucisse au foie' and 'Saucisse au chou' (smoked liver or cabbage sausages).
Fondue: This is probably the most famous swiss menu. Fondue is made out of melted cheese. It is eaten by dipping small pieces of bread or potatos in the melted cheese.
Raclette: Hot cheese dribbled over potatoes, served with small gherkins, pickled onions etc.
Recipes from the German part of Switzerland
Emmental Apple Roesti: This used to be a very popular meal, since the ingredients were usually to hand and the preparation is very simple. The recipe comes from the Emmental in Canton Bern, the home of the famous cheese.
Fotzel slices: Nobody really knows how this dish got its name. Fotzel means a torn-off scrap of paper. But in Basel dialect it means a suspicious individual, or a ne'er-do-well...Our grandmothers used to use stale bread to make fotzel slices, which made it an ideal recipe for homemakers accustomed to the rule: "Never throw any bread away."
Zopf (bread): There are dozens of types of bread in Switzerland. However, Zopf is a typical Swiss speciality for Sundays.
Birchermuesli: "Birchermüesli" was invented by Dr Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner (1867-1939), a pioneer of organic medicine and wholefoods.
Cut meat, Zurich style: This dish is often served with Roesti.
Roesti: This simple dish, similar to hash browns, is traditionally regarded as a Swiss German favorite. It has given its name to the "Rösti ditch", the imaginary line – or cultural divide - between German and French speakers in Switzerland. However, it is also eaten by the French-speaking Swiss.
Aelplermagaronen: This dish is often eaten in a mountain restaurant on a nice ski day.
Recipes from the Italian part of Switzerland
Polenta: For centuries polenta was regarded as a meal for the poor. Corn was introduced to the south of what is now Canton Ticino as long ago as the beginning of the 17th century in, which led to a change in the monotonous cuisine. But it took another 200 years before polenta - at first made of mixed flour, only later of pure cornmeal - became the staple dish of the area.
Saffron Risotto: A typical dish from Ticino
Chestnut Cake: Try this delicious cake, done with chestnut puree
Recipes from the Graubünden Canton in Switzerland:
Chur Meat Pie: A popular dish from Graubünden in south eastern Switzerland
Graubünden Barley Soup: The most famous soup from Graubünden
Pizokel with cabbage: Pizokel were eaten in a wide variety of ways. In some places when eaten by themselves they are known in Rumantsch as "bizochels bluts", or “bald pizokel”. If someone leaves a small amount of any kind of food on the serving dish for politeness sake, in the Engadine this is called "far sco quel dal bizoccal", meaning more or less “leaving the last pizokel”.
Engadine Nut Cake: There are several different recipes for nut cake, but the most famous is probably the one from the Engadine, a valley in Canton Graubünden.
Do you know a typical Swiss recipe which you would like to share with other people? Send it to us, we'd be glad to hear from you!
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