Yeah...as if you never gorged yourself on salty crackers and cheese and wine..


How about olives? Should we exclude those too?


I think you mean berries (raspberries and blackberries) chocolate, but I might be wrong. Have tasted almost everything from there long before that semi-scandal. It's really good. If it's your thing, perhaps it's good to buy more now, since their business too must suffer from corona crisis and lockdown.
All our philosophical discussions on EF or elsewhere just pale in the face of real people losing their jobs.

Don't tempt me, I might try it one day..

But then I wouldn't have the feeling of pampering myself and the associated guilt.

No, Sprüngli called them Luxemburgerli since for ever. (shut up, 22yards ) so why should they call them Macarons???

Yes, I do mean raspberrie-chocolate. And I've not had bramble-chocolate yet but it's possible I'll be willing to kill for it once I do.
<<All our philosophical discussions on EF or elsewhere just pale in the face of real people losing their jobs>> that's only correct for people who don't think things through before they riot.
No Läderach along my normal paths so - as they did so far - they will have to survive without me. Except when I get lucky and someone dropped it into my milk-box.

The Salzgebäck indeed is easy to make. I do sometimes when I have left over flaky pastry.

Guilt when pampering yourself? . What a strange notion.

__________________
It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So

It was a joke, I even added the smiley.

I take it you don't do jokes on Catholics.

Again, a joke, as you required someone digs some dirt about them. They can call these cakes however they please, obviously.

Not one along my path too, and since I am 100% they didn't rely on me or any of us on EF to survive....I hope they'll find a way even now when it's a bit more difficult, and not necessarily because those homophobic views. I bet people forgot. Those who even found out about them. It might come as a surprise to some EFers, but at least the expats I know had no idea about these "riots". They wouldn't even care, probably.

The catholic vale of tears actually did come to mind but I decided not to mention it.

Lol, have said it many times before.

Eh?! What did I (not) say?

Anyway, who's going to start a protest march against kaffir limes? And the Swiss online retailer WOG (World of Games)? And...

Macarons (according to Wikipedia) originally came from Italy and hence on to France.
They came to Switzerland later brought by a chef who moved to Switzerland from from Luxembourg, hence the name.

They are essentially the same thing, just with a different name.
That's not unusual - there are name difference for food items within a country too.

St1lemans is always banging on about Bolognese ragu and original, authentic recipes.
It's actually French (Ragu comes from the French word ragout) and existed in France, and in England, many years before reaching Italy. It travelled to England during the 11th century Norman invasion.
Obviously the tomatoes came into the recipe later as they didn't reach Europe to the 16th century.

I think we can all agree that Alpen macaroni is definitely Swiss and was probably thought up in a cold, bleak winter in the mountains when the larder was getting low and potatoes and macaroni were eaten on alternate days and someone decided, in the interests of variety, to mix the two together.

As apples were one of the few fruit that would would store all winter, I should think they ate apple puree with most things (potatoes or macaroni) to add more flavour.

Everyone is banging on about original recipes on EF, I find this sort of nationalism quite amusing. The least annoying.

I think it is possible that many other countries had some sort of meat based stews long before they borrowed and adapted to local tastes other recipes.

I like Alplermakronen tbh. This is the kind of recipe most kids would love in my experience.

But there still weren't any potatoes in Switzerland until after somebody brought them back from the Americas, and even so I guess it would have taken quite a few years if not generations before they reached the Swiss Alps and established themselves as a staple there. Likewise I am not even actually sure if you can make macaroni from any of the cereal crops traditionally grown in Switzerland. They were probably imported, and before shipping became so cheap, that would have made them a costly delicacy, available only to the rich. So Älpler Macroni must be a relatively new thing. At lesast in its present guise as a relatively low-cost and no-frills dish.

As for apples. I agree that apples are one of the few fruit that can be stored throughout the winter. But that is talking about fresh (or at least unprocessed) apples. If you move into the category, cooked and turned into puree, that category is suddenly much larger and includes most common types of fruit. So the choice of apple puree is not a totally obvious one here. In the adverse mountain climate it is easier to grow cherries and plums than it is apples, so maybe people there were eating Kaiserschmarren before they invented Älpler Makronli (even though I think the very thought would shock many Swiss today). I think the motivation for apples is taste rather than pure practicality.

According to Wikipedia, the magronen first cme to Switzerland when the Gotthard tunnel was being built. Must be around 1875.

I assumed the apples were stored whole and made into puree as and when needed. This would negate the need to own, purchase, or transport storage jars with air-tight lids and also the need to sterilise them before use.

How much easier just to have a tray of apples and cook them as needed.

Fruit that wouldn't store was just eaten seasonally.

....or transformed into an inebriating (relatively) strong liquor.

Reminded me of Lindt Kirschstengeli, one of my mom's favourites.

For which apples are relatively unsuited due to the high pectin content. Cherries and plums on the other hand are highly suitable.

It's a common misbelief that pasta came to Switzerland when the Gotthard tunnel was built (that's what wiki says). In reality the first pasta factories in Switzerland opened around 40 years earlier in the 1830s.

"pasta" probably appeared everywhere in the world on its own. I mean, flour and water and no yeast, c'mon, this is like the first thing that was done when people made flour for the first time a few thousand years ago.

Pasta was certainly cultivated in Switzerland in the 1950s, and I'm sure for a long time before that, too.

I'm not sure how old cultivated wheat is but they were certainly eating noodles of one form or other in China and other eastern countries a long time ago.

And there are macaroons with coconut

I believe that traditional Chinese / east Asian noodles are made from something different, but definitely Italian / Mediterranean style noodles are for the most part and traditionally made from durum wheat. Durum traditionally required warmer and drier climates to grow on a commercial basis and so there wouldn't have been much of it grown in Switzerland or anywhere north of the Alps. It probably originated in what is today Syria or Iraq but had already reached southern Italy by the end of the Bronze Age. These days selective breeding and research are increasingly producing varieties that can be grown in more temperate climates and closer to home. These days Italy even actually imports it from Canada.

Made from rice, not wheat.

Tom