When people think of Swiss food, typically fondue, raclette – cheese in general – and chocolate spring to mind. However, Swiss cuisine goes a lot further than that, drawing not only on all the richness that four regions (German, French, Italian and Romansh-speaking) have to offer, but on specialties specific to each of the country’s 26 states called cantons.
That breaks down further – as Martin Weiss, an expert in traditional Swiss cooking, says: ‘’ Practically every valley, every village, has a specialty that you can't find anywhere else.’’
A Valais Exclusive
In predominantly French-speaking Valais, Switzerland’s third largest canton (after Graubünden and Bern) and the home of the iconic Matterhorn, the meal known as the brisolée is a feature wherever there are chestnut groves. The focal area is the part of the canton closer to Lake Geneva, an area that extends over into the Chablais region of canton Vaud. Seeing as the central component of the brisolée is the chestnut, the meal is only served in the fall. The word brisolée comes from an old Valais patois word, 'breujöïée', which means roasted chestnuts.
In years gone by, when it was essentially poor person's fare, a brisolée consisted of little more than a bit of alpine cheese and chestnuts. Nowadays, it consists of local meats, like air-dried beef sliced sliver-thin, air-dried bacon, and slices of various types of locally-made sausage. Cheeses are locally or regionally made, and include cow’s and goat’s milk cheeses, perhaps sheep’s milk cheese. Rye bread with butter, walnuts, and pickles (cornichons and pearl onions at the very least, sometimes greatly more imaginative ones like asparagus, pumpkin, zucchini to name but a few of many possibilities) go with all this.
What Else Is Part Of A Brisolee?
Fruit – like apples, pears, grapes – is also served, sometimes even a slice of apple tart. In the Rhône river valley that runs through Valais, orchards abound so fruit brandies like the famous pear brandy Williamine are also produced in this canton. On steeply-ascending terraces rising up from the valley are the vineyards that make Valais Switzerland’s largest wine producer.
Walnuts – also harvested in the fall – may be a part of the brisolée, but nothing is more crucial than the chestnut. Chestnut trees grow all over Switzerland, but aside from Greppen, in the canton of Lucerne in the Swiss heartland, which boasts Switzerland’s largest chestnut market, the three cantons where festivals and special dishes abound are Valais, Ticino, and Graubünden.
Chestnut Festivals
In Valais, the biggest-ticket chestnut festival is in the commune of Fully which is also home to many wineries including that of Marie-Thérèse Chappaz, one of Switzerland’s top-tier winemakers. Along with a 15 hectare-grove of chestnut trees that can be visited, during the October event there is an abundance of street vendors selling roasted chestnuts in paper cones not to mention the availability of the brisolée which is traditionally washed down with cool white wine, cider or freshly-pressed grape juice called must.
Sometimes, a brisolée royale is on offer. The only difference between this and a regular brisolée is that a greater variety of meat and sausage, and more types of cheese, come with it.
Readers interested in fall food specialties in Switzerland may also wish to read Game Season.
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