We have spent quite a bit of time during the past couple of years putting together a lot of (hopefully) useful information on fresh fruits and vegetables in Switzerland. You can get up-to-date information on what products are available fresh each month, along with some helpful translations (German, Swiss, Italian, French), purchasing tips, cooking tips, nutritional information, locations of markets throughout Switzerland...and sometimes a few nice photos. This service is for free, and can be accessed by visiting this link in our web site: http://www.laughinglemon.ch/en/season.htm

We'll be adding some more useful tips on cooking in Switzerland, as well as information on Swiss wines...If you have any suggestions, we would love to hear from you...

Thanks,
Jack

Fresh fruit and vegetables in Zurich??? Finding that must have been a challange! I still wish the banans I see in the supermakrets were not either green or already brown

I know people have different definitions of what's fresh, and that is certainly ok. For me, the freshest food is the food that travels the least distance from farmer to fork... I also like bananas, but they are not native to this area, and that is simply a fact of life. There are, however, plenty of other fresh fruits and vegetables from Europe that are easily obtained by visiting a market...Try some of the items listed for this month...they are really superior to what one can get at Migros or Coop (hint...try the blood oranges). I am always willing to answer questions or help out with recipe ideas...so let me know!

Jack

Hi Jack,

Firstly let me say thanks for posting this. I think you've done an excellent job with your website! Like Lynn, I'm often disappointed about the quality of food here, both in the supermarket and in restaurants. I'm by no means a gourmet expert, but I know what fresh ingredients taste like, and I know that they can be easily found in other places.... Like you said - people's definition of what fresh means can vary, but I am sometimes puzzelled why I can walk into a supermarket in the UK and find much nicer produce than in a Swiss supermarket - and surely they are far away from anything fresh!

I'd agree with the distance from farmer to fork part, but surely the way it is handled, selected, packaged, stored and presented also has something to do with it? I was eating in a restaurant in Okinawa once and was offerred the choice of local lobster or Maine lobster flown in by jet. Just for the hell of it I went for the Maine lobster and it was great. It had been flown half way across the world but it was fresh and delicious. It also cost me around CHF40 which was quite reasonable.

I've often wondered where a top chef would go to source ingredients here, though the markets you seem to mention on your website are quite small (i'm guessing) and probably not run on a daily basis.

Keep up the good work with your site, and hopefully I can join some of your courses soon - but they keep getting booked out so far in advance

Mark

I think that UK supermarkets often seem to have fresher food because they tend to be much bigger than supermarkets over here. This means that turnover of fresh goods is much higher and it is unlikely to have been out on display for that long - a box of apples might last less than 20 minutes, so they are usually still chilled when you buy them.

The smaller supermarkets in the UK seem to suffer in much the same way as those here.

I agree with you about bananas here - they are either green or brown. Maybe they are chemically treated in the UK to keep them yellow for longer - bananas is bananas, surely.

Supermarkets in the UK by no means supply fresh vegetables. The fruit and veg is treated and grown (engineered) for shelf-life purpose. Example - a colleague of mine bought an apple in the states. Over 4 weeks later she removed it from the top drawer of her desk adn it was as shiny and fresh as the day she bought it. Friut and veg is grown for high yield, long life and good looks, like the straight banana which is that way according to European standards - this results in low flavor low, low goodness.The UK is picking up on proper organics, getting a box of seasonal veg delivered is low cost and easy. Seasonal is another thing. Don't you find it bizarre that you can buy strawberries in December, grown in hothouses in Holland, of course they taste like sh*t. There must be markets, particularly close to France and Italy that have proper fresh produce, grow seasonally and naturally. All supermarkets whether in the UK or in Zurich sell the same chemically treated, genetically tweaked cr4p. Movements like organics adn slow food are catching on, but it's going to take time, first it becomes trendy, like all the bio stuff you see in supermarkets here at exhorbitant prices, then later on you just hope that the trend extends and the prices go down. But you can bet the supermarkets and brands will milk the 'bio' cash cown for what it's worth.

Give me an allotment i say.

Funny one of my good friends always goes on about the Milk in Turkey and how fresh it was(is?). After 1 day it has gone off... I recently bought some fresh pasturised milk that had a best before in nearly 2 weeks. Now pray tell me, how does that work?

Hi Learmont, actually I only used the UK as an example because when I first lived in the UK (after living in Sydney) about 10 years ago I was shocked when I saw the state of the fruit and vegetables. I remember my first apple because I almost spat it out! I kind of figured that such a small island, with such poor weather and very high population density obviously had problems supplying the population with edible fruit and vegetables. But it all depends on what you are used to, if the locals haven't known any different they won't complain!

That said - in the last 10 years there have been major improvements in the state of supermarkets in the UK and I'm amazed at how the standard of fruit and vegetables have improved when I look at the supermarket shelves. No doubt this might have something to do with chemicals, but I believe that a big factor is that the British consumer has started to become more demanding and more discerning (I'm probably talking complete bollocks but anyway...)

So rather than comparing Switzerland to Australia/New Zealand/South Africa I thought I'd pick the UK and point out - if they can do it, why do we have such poor quality produce in a country which is warmer and more central? Maybe it isn't all poor - I'm just comparing supermarkets in one place to supermarkets in another.

In defense of places like Migros, I have noticed a HUGE improvement in the last 12 months in the fruit and vegetable section. That's not to say I'm excited about eating what they are selling, but they are no longer trying to sell rotten produce as a matter of course...

I agree with you about the organic stuff - but I just don't trust supermarkets to do their own organic certifications - not when there is so much money to made. Controls have to be strict and independant. The meaning of organic means different things in different countries. An ex of mine was a horticulturist and took me to organic farms about 12 years ago, and the standards they had to hold in the entire production chain was 100% organic. I understand that organic doesn't always mean 100% organic in every case (at least here). Chemicals might have been used in some part of the production process (for example, in an ingredient that might go into part of the feed). Remember that case in Germany where a deadly poison was found in an organic product...

Anyway, I suppose the thing to do is sign up for one of Jack's courses and get the low down on how things really work over here...

Mark

P.S. My take on GM - if you can do some GM so as to avoid covering it with chemicals then I'm all for it. Was reading an interesing article in the Economist about the history of wheat and how we've managed to breed wheat with massive increases in yield just by selective breeding (which is after all almost the same thing as GM) throughout history. Apparently prior to modern GM, techniques scientists used to make mutants by bombarding the stuff with radiation and then selectively breeding the results. Nobody seemed to mind, but now that we don't make mutants with radiation anymore some people seem to be up in arms about manipulting the genes directly. Anyone who owns a cat or a dog should also be aware that they have a genetically modified organism

That milk you were referring to was probably directly from the cow. If you've ever stayed on a farm and had it straight from the cow you might be shocked at how it tastes... But then again it depends what you are used to. Give me the supermarket stuff anytime . I buy skin, and since it isn't possible to buy fresh (non-UHT) skin milk in Switzerland mine always has a shelf life of several months... Which reminds me of something else - I was in Migros yesterday and saw three, yes, THREE different flavours of soy milk. I almost had a heart attack... It reminded me of standing in a supermarket in Japan baffled by the choice of almost 200 choices in the milk section.. Ok, not quite..

Well as you know I used to buy my milk from the farm down the street and yes it did taste better but cost 1.40... The other thing was the notice please boil before drinking - I never bothered unless it was for the kids in which case always. And I thought the Japanese were not big cow milk drinkers so was that all soy milk?!

Well there was soy like you'd expect anywhere - most of it was cow milk though..

Just found this article on Swissinfo:

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissin...06&sid=6447674

The article is titled "Coop tops eco-friendly supermarket charts"

At first I thought it was useful that the spotlight has been turned on the supermarkets in this way - except that only Swiss supermarkets were in this survey, so with only 6 to choose from it wasn't much of a competition. After reading the article it seems like a big attempt at backslapping. I was especially shocked when I came across this:

Its product range was praised? You mean my number 1 complaint against Migros is actually being praised? Please...

Anyway for more details read the article.

Does anyone know if there are any Organic Farmers/ Smallholders, or suppliers in Central Switzerland...or is this a bit to specialised or prohibited by cost?

I read something similar. The crux of the article was that "they" would genetically engineer a plant to suit their needs. Once they'd arrived at the required organism and they'd figured out exactly what they needed, they could reverse engineer it from scratch via selective breeding.

In this way, they completely negate any argument from the anti-GM squad.

Whether this is an argument for or against GM i'm actually not sure... the point being that it's technically just selective breeding in a hurry.

Regardless of how they achieve it, such a super-yield means no crop diversity and huge risk of problems down the line....

dave