My son is in the 6th class and he has a project on the canton of Geneva. He was supposed to get some help from a school in Geneva, but due to the lockdown there, he has not had a reply yet. Anyone here can help out with the following:

- are there any cake or biscuit specialities from Genève?
- do the Genevois joke about the Vaudois or the Zurcher? Or other cantons?

Thanks in advance!

La rissole aux poires

Deux produits sont des incontournables du terroir genevois : le cardon, premier légume suisse estampillé AOP, et la longeole, LA saucisse de Genève au bénéfice d’une IGP. En une vingtaine d’années, la production de lentilles s’est aussi faite une place. Ça tombe bien, elles se marient à merveille avec ses deux compères pour un plat très typique, 100% terroir. Mais Genève, c’est aussi des produits innovants. Par exemple, Almondgy, une barre énergétique naturelle idéale pour vos balades hivernales.

La tarte aux pruneaux du Jeûne genevois

The Tarte aux pruneaux is for the Jeûne in all Romands Cantons, even if the date changes.


The idea was that as plums were in abundance for free all over the place, eating plum tart would allow people to eat very cheaply, without meat, and then give the money saved to charity.

And don’t forget the Marmite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Escalade

Ainsi périrent les ennemis de la République!

All Cantons/Kantons take the Mickey of each other- always been so. Other Romands Cantons always laugh at Genèvois as 'grandes gueules' - loud mouthes, and snobby, but with little substance. Then each C/Kantons is mocked by all, not specifically by Genevans- for their own stereotypical specificities. Like those from Appenzell for being tiny, Bernese for being heavy and clumsy of body and mind, etc, etc.

And the Fribourgeois for being a little slow.

Cue Friburger: wait a minute, I’m from Friborg!
Me: That’s OK, I’ll speak slowly.



It has been said that the reason why the Swiss haven’t fought a war for hundreds of years, is because they have been too busy hating each other. Vaud was occupied by Berne for 262 years (1536-1798) and the Vaudoise still haven’t forgiven them.

of course there is no accent on Genevois (well they do have an accent - and we do take the mick of it- but they have a go at us Neuchâtelois back).


As for the Vaudois not forgiving the Bernois for the war- don't forget how hated they still are by the Jurassiens, as their land and them with it, their religion, their language, their culture and traditions- were handed to the Bernese in exchange for Vaud's freedom. Still very raw and reflected in local politics (Moûtiers).

Not forgetting the (almost) equally famous Poubelles Genevoises that appear mid-December and are made from damaged or unsold Marmites.

Almondgy are definitely not a Genevois speciality.... they're simply a recent invention by a local family firm of food suppliers attempting to cash in on the current healthy eating craze.

Thank you very much for the replies! That gave my son a bit more info than he found on internet (I guess googling in German for info that is mostly in French was not going to make the task easy). He is now keen on making rissoles aux poires to share in class as part of his presentation on Genf. The kid really really wants to get a 6 in French 🤓🤓.

And thank you for the little story about marmite! That’s a nice one!

That French phrase I included with the Marmite story is in the Geneva dialect, (périrent vs périssent) which most people don’t even know exists.

Unlike Swiss German dialects it is spoken very rarely, only at ceremonies and similar.

Edited to add: https://archive.org/details/fre_b188...ge/n7/mode/2up

One more thing, there are common nicknames given to the drivers of the various cantons based on the supposed character of the drivers and the abbreviation on the number plate. For Geneva, it's usually "Gueule Elastique" (roughly translates to big mouth/smooth talker).

People from Fribourg are not reputed for being slow, but for being stinky !


People from Berne are reputed to be slow


People from Vaud are reputed to be just more Bernese people but who can speak French


People from Appenzel are reputed to be small


People from Geneva for loud mouths

Yep, many jokes about that. The least offensive one is probably: Why is the top half of the Fribourg flag black and the bottom white? Because the washing tensides gave up half way. Probably makes more sense in the original French.

Most common joke I ever hear related to the Genevois is that most of Suisse do not view them as part of the country

People from Vaud would be VD, voyous dangereux (dangerous thugs)

...and the most offensive is probably Why does it smell in Fribourg ?


Because Ruth Dreifuss has one foot in Geneva and one in Berne !!


(This was when she was elected to the CF back 20 years ago and lived in Geneva and had to take a small appartment in Berne to satisfy the liguistic/gender/political party split to become a memeber of the CF)

ah, but that is not a joke

Some great jokes, but we’ll keep Ruth Dreifuss out! Not something you want to share with a bunch of pre-teens!

Btw anyone knows if Migros/Coop sell these marmites genevoises at the moment? I’m guessing it’s seasonal, but it’s not clear to me how early they are placed on the market.
Merci!