When we finally realized we were moving to Switzerland, one of the things I was looking forward to was the fresh food. We’ve talked about what the Swiss eat, but I’m not really talking about that. When you go to a Swiss grocery store, most of the items that you see in the dairy and produce section were probably produced within a few kilometers of where you are buying them. Preservatives are uncommon here. Yogurt and milk usually come from local dairies. Potatoes and apples are also usually local.
Well when it comes to getting it fresh, we got more than we bargained for. Starting in late Summer, we had started taking the kids on bike rides throughout the town to get to know it better, and to enjoy the scenery. Fairly quickly we stumbled across a farm a few blocks down from us. We knew one must be close, by the smell if nothing else, but when we finally found it, we noticed a sign out front that indicated it sold some simple farm items: milk, eggs, potatoes, apples, etc.
When we finally looked into it seriously, we found a small stand behind the barn, off the road, that housed their “for-sale” goods. There were baskets of apples, potatoes, various fresh vegetables. There was also a refrigerator filled with eggs. There were also some jarred items like honey, and grape jelly. And in the corner is a scale to weigh your produce, and a small money box that you leave your payment in. There’s no person guarding the stand. No one checks your math. No one even knows if you really even paid.
We went and bought some items one day: potatoes and eggs. The potatoes were labeled by their type (a classification of which I was wholly unaware… they all looked the same to me). Eggs were mixed brown and white, and I believe we met some of the generous chickens while we were there. We wanted to buy milk, and it seemed they had it for sale, but we couldn’t find where it was.
As we were leaving the farm one day, the farmer’s wife was around, so we asked her about milk. She asked us, in German, how many bottles we had. We looked at each other and thought, “bottles?” She smiled, went into the house and brought out a 1.5L bottle, freshly washed. She took us into the milk room which contained a huge stainless steel vat of milk, and explained that we can fill bottles ourselves anytime we want. Just leave payment in the stand for each liter.
So now, about two or three times a week, we head back to the farm, wave to the cows, chat with the farmer, his wife, and mother, get our basics (milk, eggs, apples, potatoes), check on anything new they have that day, pay for our groceries and leave. The milk has never tasted so good. If we want cream for our coffee, we just pour it off the top of the milk in the morning. And better than that, I can check on the cows anytime I want, just to make sure they’re doing fine.
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