Dining in Switzerland Trivia Quiz

Answer: Savoyard: made with beaufort, emmental de Savoie, and abondance

Fondue is a dish in which cheese is mixed with wine and warmed in a communal pot into which you traditionally dip cubes of bread using special long-handled forks. You have to stir continuously to prevent the cheese from coagulating. Be careful! There is a penalty if the bread falls off your fork into the pot; penalties can range from paying the next round of drinks to singing a funny song or doing a dance.

While the three incorrect answers are variants of Swiss fondue, the Savoyard fondue comes from neighboring France. The Swiss can argue for hours about which cheese to use, whether to grate the cheese or cut it into small cubes, how much white wine to add, whether or not to add garlic or kirsch (cherry liqueur), whether to stir the cheese in a figure eight motion or circles, and whether to drink hot tea or white wine with it?. If you want to hear a real argument, sit down at a table with a few Swiss and a few French from the Savoie region. Not only do they argue about which recipe is best, but they also disagree about who invented fondue.

Fondue, from the French word "fondre" meaning to melt, was cited as early as 1699 in a Swiss German language cookbook published in Zurich, Switzerland. The Savoyards refer to a recipe for a melted cheese dish published by a French chef François Pierre de La Varenne in 1651. The Swiss will counter that the French may have published first, but they got the recipe from the Swiss. They may both be wrong, as Homer in the "Iliad" refers to a liquid mixture of goat's milk cheese, wine and barley wheat, which sounds very similar to fondue.

Answer: Beer

Many Swiss believe that drinking anything other than white wine, kirsch, or an herbal tea causes the cheese to thicken in the stomach, leading to indigestion.

Switzerland does not always come quickly to mind when we think of wine nations, but they produce many excellent white and red wines. Chasselas is the best-known indigenous grape and is one of the most cultivated, along with pinot noir, gamay, and merlot. Swiss white wines tend to be less acidic in taste than those of nearby countries, in part because producers often add sugar. The cantons of the Valais, Vaud, and Geneva are the largest wine-growing regions, although there are vineyards in other cantons, such as the Ticino. The Swiss export less than 2% of their wine, preferring to drink it themselves.

Grapes have been grown in Switzerland at least since the Roman Empire, and some experts believe that wine production predated the Romans. Many of the vineyards face significant challenges because they are at relatively high altitudes where it snows in the winter and where steep hillsides are typical. In the 12th century, Cistercian monks in the Lavaux region of the canton of Vaud created up to seven-mile-long stone wall terraces making it possible to cultivate the steep slopes overlooking Lake Geneva. In 2007, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared the Lavaux Vineyard Terraces a World Heritage site because of its centuries' old interaction between people and their environment. Today, people can walk through the vineyards, stopping at small huts where the growers leave bottles of wine for tasting in return for a voluntary contribution.

Answer: Crimean War

Malakoffs have been served in the Swiss canton of Vaud since the 19th century. One theory is that the cheese fritters were named for a Russian general; most say the recipe came back with Swiss mercenaries who helped the French during the Crimean War to break through the Malakoff-Kurgan ridge defenses known as "Fort Malakoff", one of the main fortifications around Sevastopol. During the war, the mercenaries would melt slices of cheese in pots over the campfire and pour it over bread.

After returning home, they got together around campfires to share war stories and to eat melted cheese. Eventually, someone decided to cover the cheese with bread crumbs and fry it in butter. Today, Malakoffs are balls of cheese covered with bread crumbs, and fried in oil. Several villages along the wine road overlooking Lake Geneva specialize in Malakoffs.

Answer: Villagers in the remote mountainous region of the Valais

Cholera pie is said to have been created by people in alpine villages in the remote valleys beyond the eastern end of Lake Geneva. During the 1830s there deadly outbreaks of many contagious diseases, not only cholera, but also the flu, and pneumonia. Villagers, wanting to escape contamination, avoided going down into the more populated areas for fresh supplies. Drawing on what they had on hand, they invented cholera pie, combining cooked potatoes, bacon, leeks, pears, apples and onions inside a double crust. Cholera pie is still served today in many of the small towns and villages of the Canton of Vaud or Wallis in German. Some believe that the name came from the Walliser dialect words for coal, Chola or Cholu, or for the place where coal was stored and the pie rested while waiting to be baked, Cholära.

Although not the correct answer to this question, the Ordre des Chevaliers du Bon Pain de la Suisse latine (Order of the Knights of Good Bread of Latin Switzerland) does exist. It was founded in 1959 and links together artisan bread makers in the French and Italian parts of the country, as well the Savoie region of France. Their purpose is to ensure the continued existence of quality artisanal bread.

Answer: Sbrinz

While the traditional Polenta alla Ticinese can be made with all four types of cheese, sbrinz is the only Swiss one in the list; the others are Italian in origin. Sbrinz is an extra-hard parmesan-like hard cow's milk cheese produced by 30 dairies in central Switzerland.

The cheese has the AOP label (Appellation d'Origine Protegé), which means it must meet strict production requirements. Sbrinz matures for at least 18 months before being sold. The traditional recipe blends butter, grated cheese, salt and paprika into cooked cornmeal.

The polenta is then spread on a cookie sheet and chilled. The chilled mixture is cut into fingers or small rectangles. Finally, cream and cheese are poured over the fingers before they are baked to a golden brown.

Answer: First day of the Basel Carnival

The Basel onion tart is a creamy quiche-like pie, with a pound of onions, bacon, cream, eggs, cayenne, gruyère cheese, and spices. It is traditional to serve it on the first day of Basel's three-day carnival.

Basel's carnival is one of the largest Protestant carnivals in the world. The oldest record of the celebration dates from 1376, but it is believed to be much older. The carnival begins on the Monday following Ash Wednesday when lights in the city center are switched off and the streets fill with people carrying colorful paper lanterns, pipers and drummers. There are also parades with brass bands and floats.

National Fast Day is a day of thanksgiving celebrated throughout Switzerland since the Middle Ages. It falls on the third Sunday in September. The one exception is the canton of Geneva, which has a separate fast day on the third Thursday in September, called Jeûne genevois, a day of solidarity originally in remembrance of French Protestants killed in the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572.

Answer: Grisons

Capuns are a traditional dish from the Grison or Graubünden (its German name). Recipes vary from family to family. Some make it with spätzle-like dough; others add bread. Some add green onion and horsemint; others use rosemary, oregano or chives. There is a saying "there are as many recipes for capuns as there are grandmothers in Graubünden". Some believe that the dish originated in the Surselva region of the canton, in the heart of the Alps.

The Grisons is a trilingual canton; different parts speak German, Italian, and Romansh. It is the only canton where Romansh has official status.

Answer: No

Dr Bircher-Benner, a pioneer nutritionist, was born in Aargau and operated a sanatorium in Zurich. Believing that cereals, raw fruits, and vegetables were essential for good health, he created müesli around 1900, calling it his "apple diet dish". The dish combined oat flakes with chopped apples, lemon juice, milk, honey, and chopped nuts.

He served müesli to his patients at every meal. In 1959, a Swiss company, Somalon, received permission to begin manufacturing Birchermüesli commercially, and eventually began exporting it to other countries.

Answer: Meringues

The double cream and strawberry dessert is usually served with meringues. Swiss meringues are prepared by whisking together eggs and sugar and then heating the mixture over boiling water. When the sugar has dissolved, you take it off the heat and whip the mixture until it forms stiff peaks. Swiss meringues are generally glossy, much smoother than French meringues.

In 2016, the city of Gruyère beat the record for the world's longest meringue. Nine chefs used 1000 eggs to prepare a meringue that was 100 m (328 ft) long, which they served topped with double cream. The previous record had been held by Meiringen, a town in the canton of Berne, which claims to be the place where meringues were invented in the 17th century.

Answer: Marzipan vegetables and candies

Geneva's Fête de l'Escalade commemorates the December 1602 defeat of the Duke of Savoy, whose troops were attempting to capture the walled city by scaling the walls at night. For over twenty years, the Duke had sought to annex Geneva, then an independent, Protestant city-state. According to legend, a mother of fourteen children happened to look over the wall and saw the attackers. She grabbed a cauldron of vegetable soup that she was preparing, threw it over the wall onto the attackers, and sounded the alarm. The Genevois rallied and saved their city.

During the Fête de l'Escalade today, there is a procession through Geneva's old city with people dressed in costumes of the period. Children have vegetable soup at school and sing a song that recounts what happened that night. Older children go to restaurants and other public places and sing the song for coins. At home, families gather around a chocolate marmite filled with marzipan vegetables and candies. The oldest and the youngest members of the family join hands and crush open the marmite, and everyone says "Ainsi périrent les ennemis de la République!" (Thus perish the enemies of the Republic!)