Slowly but surely, the Swiss mentality is infiltrating my brain. I tell myself that as long as I can still register horror at this process, they haven’t completely taken me down, and I will fight it until my will has been dominated, and I become a rule-following, trash-sorting, non-jaywalking, CD-alphabetizing, belt-wearing, mullet-sporting Swiss-wannabe. Two recent examples of this Swissification: I had my name and email address engraved on my MP3 player, because then if someone found it, they could return it to me more easily. Hee. I actually believe that it is possible that someone would return a $400 MP3 player to me if they found it on the tram or something. (Scarily, they probably would, given that lost laptops regularly make it back to their rightful owners here). Second, I was in a restaurant and ordered the fish, despite the landlocked nature of Switzerland. I miss seafood, OK? There is hope for me, though. I still recognize the distinction between restaurants that serve good food, and restaurants that serve bad food, although I am now surprised when a restaurant actually serves good food for a reasonable price. When the fish came out, it was good, and I was shocked. Since when is it shocking that food you order in a nice, sit-down restaurant actually tastes good? Since coming to Switzerland.
OK, so I have recently gone through a spate of American food cravings. Nothing elaborate, just things like burgers, PB&J, chili, and so on. In procuring the necessary supplies to make these things, I noticed even more oddities about the grocery shopping experience here than I had noticed before. It amazes me, how the grocery store here never ceases to amaze me. The spice aisle, for instance, only has about 10 spices, plus a bunch of mish-mash mixes. Want celery salt? Sorry, no luck, but if you’d like “Mexican” spice, or “Thai curry” in a jar, we’ve got that. The jam aisle brings further revelations. You can get a huge jar of strawberry-rhubarb preserves, or generic-brand jars of such flavours as kiwi-apple or cranberry-pear, for about $2 a jar. Also inexplicably in the jam aisle is this sort of pureed, sweetened chestnut product that has the consistency of high-grit toothpaste and the appeal of grade school paste. How can they have so much selection for such low prices, limited to one type of product? Go elsewhere in the store, and there is only one brand, or two, tops, for criminal prices. Since when does chicken cost more than $20 a pound?
Speaking of chicken (and other meat), there is some sort of regulation that requires that all meat be labelled with its country of origin, both in restaurants and in supermarkets. I assure you that it brings me unspeakable relief, knowing that Fiver’s horsemeat is American and my ground beef is Swiss. The ground beef, by the way, was for burgers. It took me a while to find ground beef, since they have various ground meats here, and the ground meat that is packaged and promoted for making burgers is a mix of beef, pork, and veal, which I don’t think will taste like a real burger. I’m quite sure that the pre-made horse burger patties will not taste like the burgers I’ve been missing.
Of course, you can also go to a restaurant and order burgers, and some places even boast that their burgers are “American-style,” which I am assuming means that they are horse-free. Apparently picking up on the Supersizing idea, one restaurant offers to make one burger for the entire table, no matter how big the party is, which results in a giant lump of cooked ground meat, three inches thick and soggily lying on top of an over-sized bun, ready to feed six people. Sorry, that is not a burger. And it is definitely not a burger if you’re eating it with a fork and knife (pizza and individual burgers also receive the fork and knife treatment).
Every time I get a salad, and I am asked what kind of dressing I want, I get a little bit flustered, because the colors and flavours don’t match what I grew up with. Here, the French dressing is white, and looks sort of like Ranch. The Italian dressing is reddish, and looks sort of what I would think of as Country French. The two kinds taste pretty much the same. I have no idea what the other dressings are when they are offered, but usually there are only the two, since this is Switzerland.
Two good things about going to restaurants here are that generally, they automatically do separate checks, and that tip is included in the cost of the meal. No more complicated divisions of checks at the end of the meal, and no more “multiply the tax by two and then round up.” However, that said, people still do tip, sometimes, and I am never quite sure when they decide to do it, and how much. This is further complicated by the fact that you have to make a split-second decision on tipping, since the waiter comes to you, takes your money, and gives you your change on the spot, and if you’re going to tip, you do it by telling him to keep a certain amount of the change. Nothing stalls out your brain like having to make a snap decision, then trying to dictate that decision in another language to the person who will receive the benefit (or insult) of the decision.
OK, so I have recently gone through a spate of American food cravings. Nothing elaborate, just things like burgers, PB&J, chili, and so on. In procuring the necessary supplies to make these things, I noticed even more oddities about the grocery shopping experience here than I had noticed before. It amazes me, how the grocery store here never ceases to amaze me. The spice aisle, for instance, only has about 10 spices, plus a bunch of mish-mash mixes. Want celery salt? Sorry, no luck, but if you’d like “Mexican” spice, or “Thai curry” in a jar, we’ve got that. The jam aisle brings further revelations. You can get a huge jar of strawberry-rhubarb preserves, or generic-brand jars of such flavours as kiwi-apple or cranberry-pear, for about $2 a jar. Also inexplicably in the jam aisle is this sort of pureed, sweetened chestnut product that has the consistency of high-grit toothpaste and the appeal of grade school paste. How can they have so much selection for such low prices, limited to one type of product? Go elsewhere in the store, and there is only one brand, or two, tops, for criminal prices. Since when does chicken cost more than $20 a pound?
Speaking of chicken (and other meat), there is some sort of regulation that requires that all meat be labelled with its country of origin, both in restaurants and in supermarkets. I assure you that it brings me unspeakable relief, knowing that Fiver’s horsemeat is American and my ground beef is Swiss. The ground beef, by the way, was for burgers. It took me a while to find ground beef, since they have various ground meats here, and the ground meat that is packaged and promoted for making burgers is a mix of beef, pork, and veal, which I don’t think will taste like a real burger. I’m quite sure that the pre-made horse burger patties will not taste like the burgers I’ve been missing.
Of course, you can also go to a restaurant and order burgers, and some places even boast that their burgers are “American-style,” which I am assuming means that they are horse-free. Apparently picking up on the Supersizing idea, one restaurant offers to make one burger for the entire table, no matter how big the party is, which results in a giant lump of cooked ground meat, three inches thick and soggily lying on top of an over-sized bun, ready to feed six people. Sorry, that is not a burger. And it is definitely not a burger if you’re eating it with a fork and knife (pizza and individual burgers also receive the fork and knife treatment).
Every time I get a salad, and I am asked what kind of dressing I want, I get a little bit flustered, because the colors and flavours don’t match what I grew up with. Here, the French dressing is white, and looks sort of like Ranch. The Italian dressing is reddish, and looks sort of what I would think of as Country French. The two kinds taste pretty much the same. I have no idea what the other dressings are when they are offered, but usually there are only the two, since this is Switzerland.
Two good things about going to restaurants here are that generally, they automatically do separate checks, and that tip is included in the cost of the meal. No more complicated divisions of checks at the end of the meal, and no more “multiply the tax by two and then round up.” However, that said, people still do tip, sometimes, and I am never quite sure when they decide to do it, and how much. This is further complicated by the fact that you have to make a split-second decision on tipping, since the waiter comes to you, takes your money, and gives you your change on the spot, and if you’re going to tip, you do it by telling him to keep a certain amount of the change. Nothing stalls out your brain like having to make a snap decision, then trying to dictate that decision in another language to the person who will receive the benefit (or insult) of the decision.
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