I have just read that to help kids integrate into society if they travel around with you and to help them make friends at school, one should feed them local food so they smell like the other kids.

I don't have much of a sense of smell so I do not know how powerful or realistic a step to take this would be. So my question is this...

1. Do you think feeding your kids local food would help?

2. What would be the theme of local Swiss food that would influence the integration (like eating garlic to live in France perhaps).

3. If there are any food stuffs, do you have the recipe to share?

Personally, I think that just moving my kids over will be a trauma in itself without them having to give up familiar foods they love to eat local Rosti!

Where did you read that??? It's astonishing. Is there any significant evidence supporting this claim? My first impression is that it's drivel, (not you Galatea!) and some kinda joke. Not April 1st, is it?

Local food - you mean like chips, schnitzel, bratwurst, mcdonalds and all the other rubbish a lot of kids seem to want to eat these days? (see the average children's menu in most places to see what I mean). I think when it comes to the "kids" menu in many countries it's usually the same.

As for the "smell" thing, not too sure about that.

Hmm... No Uncle Max, it was purely anecdotal. Interestingly it came from Lady Longford on Dessert Island Discs but it no longer has a listen again available. This lady was born in 1906 so maybe when she was bringing up and moving around her 8 kids in the late 1920's food would have been less homogenised with no Maccie D’s to taint the taste buds.

I guess the reason I discussed it was due my own amnosia so I had no experience to draw on and I have ruminated over the comment and discussed it with others and was interested to see if anyone could shed some light onto it and hopefully give me some tips on authentic Swiss cuisine.

Come to think of it, I can remember when Pasta was something that was kept in a glass jar to decorate the kitchen, not to be eaten. My parents still would not be venturesome enough to try other food. I once remember cooking Fajhitas at a BBQ that I invited them to and mom refused to try them on the grounds that you wouldn't get Mexican woman eating Yorkshire Pud! Geez... So probably this was more related to when each country would eat local produce and nothing else. Not relevant in todays global village way of life.

I do not think there would be any sense in this at all.
What you could do is give your kids something to take to school and share with other kids, a typical treat in your own household maybe.
Kids are curious ,they are not interested to have some other kid copying the way they eat.

It's possible that there really is something to that if the cultures are sooo different. I don't think though, that the food smells are so different between the UK and Switzerland as between some other countries and Switzerland.

Would take the "smell" thing with a pinch of salt.

Don´t believe that kiddies care much about that kind of "smells" and things like that. Unless someone ate too much garlic maybe??

Would make more sense to be if , they can try and eat the food that local kids like to have (apart from Big Macs, French fries etc..)...

So if they are invited to a birthday party or a school gathering, I suppose it makes their life (and integration) easier for them and the hosts if they can digest things like gherkins, bratwurst, nudelsalat, schnitzel and so on, rather than turning their noses up and saying "bleugh" and risk offending anyone..?

By the way, before you ask, we live in Germany, hence the food stated above ....will move to Switzerland in the New Year so yes, my kids will be trying out some local specialities very soon....

jane

Or will they... If you are moving to the German-speaking part tell them to expect more of the same....

Oh, just as well...makes life easier for them then!

On reflection I actually think this is more like the reasoning behind the statement. If you have a kid reaking of something obscure would make them targets of derision or bullying rather than blending in with the local kids, than it being some ritual like pack dogs that go around sniffing any stragglers.

setch, I like your idea on the snacks most kids love snacks and especially sweet ones. It will also help to broaden the other kids horizons in learning more about other cultures. But I wouldnt worry too much about the foods that they eat as from what I can see where I am schools seem to be pretty multicultural.
kt

The way foreigners smell is one of the most common racist insults, and I really wouldn't repeat such comments.
dave

I've been here seven years and I'm now sure there is no such thing as Swiss cuisine. Fondue came from France, Bratwurst & Raclette from Germany, spätzli from Italy. The Swiss do claim to have invented the Meringue in Meiringen but I'm not sure that counts as cuisine. Basically boil some fatty, smoked meat serve it with pureed spinach and boiled potatoes and you are just about there.

I read this post a few hours ago and have been reflecting on it ever since as I dont know which way to answer this.

Parent head on: As I and my children would be the foreigners and so bare the brunt of "the most common racist insult" surely seeing out a way of avoiding such situations makes sense?

Logical head on: To me your argument actually confirms that of the comment of Lady Longford. Aka... To prevent your children from racial abuse, dont let them stand out from the crowd (in this instance smell different) which you have pointed out IS a problem.

So I do not feel the best method of dealing with these things are to ignore them or not speak about them or repeat them, as then I am doing myself and my children a disservice.

Until your post I actually thought my opening gambit had a banal rational; that uncle max, mark and the other posters in this thread were right. That it really isnt a problem as kids all have maccie D's in common.

You base your argument on highlighting that smelling different brings foreigners into common conflict with locals and I see this as something relevant and now a cause of concern, as I do not ever want my very well travelled, broad minded, free thinking kids to encounter narrowminded bigotry of this kind.

Thanks for opening my eyes to such problems.

Galatea, you did mention earlier on that you were unable to smell. Your exploration of this subject is from a somewhat unique perspective - you have no idea what you are talking about (I don't mean that in bad way at all, I mean it in the sense that you have to rely on the advice of others for something which you can never experience yourself).

I interpreted your post to mean something along the lines of a far more subtle smell - like the way that pheromones have influences on our behaviour that we are not always aware of.

I think DaveA was referring more to stronger smells involved in stereotypes - people who may stink of garlic (some cultures do consume more garlic than others) or not wear deodorant or the like. I'm not sure if that's the direction you were going with your original post.

It's easy sometimes on these forums to quickly scan a thread or not fully appreciate what was trying to be conveyed in the original post. If you picked out the main message by looking at the words "foreigner" and "smell" it would be easy to get fired up and say something about racism, but I don't think that's where you were going in the first place.

Or alternatively I could have completely misunderstood the whole thing, in which case I apologise in advance.

I once heard a speaker who has researched genocide in various times and places of the world. He made a point that has never left my mind. He said that in the processes leading up to massacres or genocides, the most often reported racial stigmas is the unpleasant smell of the other people.

Well I actually had a loose (albeit lacking) concept of the meaning myself. My initial response when I read the comment was Nahh cant be... But then perhaps my lack of smell got me wondering if there is something in it, this was my motivation for the post. It was a rumination, to develop or gain other perspectives.

Dave's was an interesting one and in its own way actually was reiterating the comment made by Lady Longford. She obviously, through experience had seen kids can be mean and pick up on differences and so the rationale of feeding kids same types of food would eliminate this. This therefore really furthered my inquiry and has genuinely made me think... Especially with the ideas bounced around in the racist thread.

I don't quite know where I wanted it to go, it was kind of casting out the net and seeing what it produced. Dave raised an issue I think was pertinent to the discussion.

I thought that muesli is originally Swiss? What about tasty chocolate? And certain tyes of cheese? Not to forget the various sausages.

Of course there is Swiss cuisine. Fondue and Raclette are Swiss/French in origin, and Spätzle are German in origin, not Italian. And considering those things all have their origins hundreds of years ago, and have been eaten here for centuries, I think they can safely be considered Swiss food. Rösti, Geschnetzeltes, Älplermagronen, etc. are definitely Swiss, and that doesn't include Italian-Swiss and French-Swiss specialties that I know little about. Not to mention Desserts and the like as well.

I would imagine anyone from a western country would have little trouble getting kids to eat Swiss food, as it wouldn't be that much different from what they're probably used to. Potatoes, meat, vegetables, etc. Where are you from, Galatea?

Regardless, I grew up in the US eating things like tounge sandwich on rye bread while the rest of the kids ate bologna on white bread. It didn't make all that much of a difference how I was treated, but I could never get kids to trade sandwiches with me.

I *think* a cafe in the Niederdorf in ZH invented the Mohnkopf - otherwise known as Walnut Whips, in the UK at least. There's even a guild-type gold Mohnkopf emblem hanging outside the cafe. The name (literally meaning poppyseed head) comes from the inventors idea that it resembled a Moors head (as in a Black mans head) - hmm ... yummy, though, even without the walnut!

Ps, just been reflecting on this: it may have something to do with smoking Opium, and the need for super-sweet pick-me-ups after riding the Horse... er, so I've been told <cough>