100 YEARS OLD AND STILL HIGHLY GASTRO-GNOMIC...
AS Jane Austen might well have pointed out, it is a fact universally acknowledged that one cannot eat cuckoo clocks. Pen-knives and gnomes are also, I imagine, fairly indigestible, Swiss rolls did not even originate in Switzerland (Austria seems the most likely culprit) and the characteristic holes in Emmental cheese were once viewed as a sign of imperfection. Put all those gastronomic facts together and you will understand my sense of intrigue at being invited to an evening of Cooking Zurich Style earlier this week.
“I shall go,” I decided resolutely, “and I shall bring an ample supply of home-made biscuits just in case the other attendees and I tire of Austrian rolls and holey cheese.”
So that was how I found myself the other evening just round the corner from the holy but perfectly un-holey glories of St Paul’s Cathedral at the city branch of Atelier des Chefs, cooking up and wolfing down some rather splendid Swiss food under the command of the young but definitely talented Zurich chef Pascal Schmutz.
The event had been put together by the people at Zurich tourism who had run a highly successful food festival in their city last year. They now wanted to spread the word that there is more to Swiss food than chocolate and Austrian rolls and Pascal, who has a bit of a reputation for gastronomic wildness, was just the man for the job.
“I want two of you to chop up the salad,” he said, directing a couple of guests to a bowl of lettuce, “and one more to compose some ingredients.” He gestured at more bowls which I was aghast to find, when I volunteered for the job, were full of beetroot juice, marinated beetroot, and pearl barley.
Beetroot is one of my least liked foods and I have never seen the point of pearl barley, but I had no time to mention this before he told me to: “Mix some of these together, then taste it and add salt if it needs it.” As for precise quantities, he was silent and had rushed off to give some more vague instructions to others before I could ask for more details.
Never one to bother to weigh things out when following recipes, I was quite at home with his orders so added a bit of this to that, stirred it up, added some of the other, tasted, added salt, and decided it was fine.
Meanwhile, another fellow had done something similar with the dressing, and a couple of girls had expertly marinated some strips of fish. We all brought our components together, grabbed spoons and combined them into a first course “Ceviche Zurich style salad with beetroot and pearl barley” that tasted rather delicious.
Much the same happened with the main course of “Veal fillet cooked in hay, mushroom mayonnaise, celeriac rosti and mashed potatoes,” all put together by valiant volunteers, with Pascal setting fire to the hay to finish the veal. The highlight for me came in smashing up a bar of Toblerone for the “yoghurt apple, Toblerone cream and Bircher (a sort of muesli) crumble”.
There is clearly more to Zurich than gnomes and fondue. I must definitely drop in for a meal one day.