Onions and Turkeys

I thought that I would take a bit of time to tell everyone about two important holidays for the Amero-Swiss community: the Bern Onion Market (Zibele-Märit) and of course, Thanksgiving (now a while back).

First to the Onion Market.

The fouth Monday of November sees Bern transformed into a cacophony of noise, smells, and confetti.

The exact origin of the festival is debatable, but it seems to date back at least a couple hundred years (possibly even the 1500`s). In any case, it was a day for the local farmers to show there stuff (read onions). The party starts ridiculously early, with onion pies and champagne before dawn (we started around 10 am).

In addition to the real onions, there are strings of candy onions in a variety of colors and flavors.

The real onions are even more impressive. No bags full of random root bulbs, the Bernese farmers plait their onions into lovely strings. I imagine earnest Swiss farmers sorting through tones of fresh onions (eyes watering with the effort) till they find the perfect size and shape to fit the string.

 

Some of these braided onion strands are really quite impressive.

However, not all that is Swiss is orderly and comprehend-able. Here you can see onions in drag...why?...who knows! (but they are cute)

It is hard not to get caught up in the thrill of it all. Here is jen and me wearing onions and holding onions after having just eaten onions.

  

So, along with the whole onion motif, there is serious chaos afoot in the streets. Kids and adults run around with large plastic hammers (that make a loud noise when you smack them on something) beating oneanother mercilessly and joyfully. Also obligatory is covering every square inch of street and human with confetti.

 

It is a great party, and a fun tradition. Who knows, perhaps next year we will start a few hours earlier!

Then we needed a holiday that made sense, so we had Thanksgiving. Our friends Bruno and Sabine came over for a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. We had pretty much everything (we even found Canadian (close enough) cranberries in the store). Although, I can not recommend doing Thanksgiving in Switzerland for a large group. Even our tiny bird (Sabine for scale) cost 50 CHF. We saw a couple in the store for over 100 franks. On the bright side, neither Bruno nor Sabine had ever seen a cooked turkey (other than in the more common breast form), so we were able to wow them with a 6 lb. bird.

Pfifferlinge in season

starting now, peaking in a few weeks and then tapering off a few after that, is pfifferlinge season.
these tasty little treats are called chanterelle in english, though i had never tasted them before coming here as far as i know.
these often quite tiny, fluted, amber colored mushrooms are available at the market now and are featured in every menu in town for as long as the season lasts.
they are extremely popular here, as case in point, we were pushed out of the way at market last weekend by a woman who saw us buying them while saying over and over until she got to them- pfifferlinge, pfifferlinge, i had not seen them, i had not seen them! obviously she needed a pfifferlinge fix.
the down side of these mushrooms is that they are damn hard to clean, but for their delicate flavor and yummy texture, we can put up with a little dirt- it is good for your immune system right?
the tradition of weekend or even weekday markets are not just in vogue in europe, but are naturally, backed by hundreds of years of people simply needing a bit of food- exactly like farmer's markets back home. it is wonderful to be able to support our neighbors and local sellers by buying local foods and also eating foods in season, so that we are not adding to our carbon footprint with transportation costs.
...and the weekly esspresso mobil double latte macchiato doesn't hurt.