Weather forecast: cool, damp
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Rain and temperatures of 12-16C will be the norm this weekend, just right for waxing romantic about the good old days and hunting for antiques and eating Swiss handmade boudin, or blood sausage.
Start by heading to Morges to visit the Swiss Classic British Cars event, an annual event that draws 20,000 people to admire old MGs, Austins, Jaguars and more. You’ll find a number of flea markets, brocantes for antique-lovers and farmers markets on Events.GenevaLunch.com.
Making the traditional pork boudins, sausages
A special treat for slow food movement fans and those who want to sample traditional old recipes before they disappear is the once-a-year Huusgmachti Meetzgete in canton Bern’s Saanenmoser, near Gstaad, starting Friday night. The Golf Hotel Les Hauts de Gstaad & Spa is a family hotel that two years ago celebrated its 100th anniversary.
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The Huusgmachti is now in its eighth year; it offers a rare chance to eat what were once common family specialties in German-speaking Switzerland, prepared at the start of winter, when young pigs were slaughtered for fresh pork dishes and for smoking for winter bacon.
Head chef and son-in-law of the von Siebenthal owners, Markus Sprenger, has built a large base of fans for his (now rare) homemade boudin and liver sausage made from scratch from young pigs that belong to the hotel – the only hotel in Switzerland that still raises its own farm animals.
I spent Thursday with head chef Sprenger, the third generation in his family to make the pork specialties. It’s an all-day operation that starts early, and it’s messy, so the preparation is all done outside.
The only hotel in the country with its own animals
The pigs are raised by a cousin of Sprenger in Zurich (the hotel raises cows and sheep in Saanenmoser). The chef picks selects two piglets in May and they lead a happy outdoor life, fed slops and whatever they find in the field until October. They need to reach a certain size, about 90 kg, but not get bigger, in order for the meat to have some fat, but not marblng in the meat.
The pigs were killed early Thursday and Sprenger went to work, first making the liver sausage, which also uses several other parts of the pig, including cheeks and ears – traditionally, families used every part of a pig and Sprenger wants to show how it was done. The sausage uses chopped meat, onion with a thin layer of pig fat that is found just under the skin, and a mix of herbs and spices – cloves, marjoram and garlic are key.
Speed and an open space
The boudin, or blood sausages, are a more dramatic food item to prepare, and timing in crucial, for the fresh ingredients must be used at the right temperature.
Sprenger and a couple members of staff start with soaked casings which they have cut to length. He pours some of the 20 litres of fresh blood from the young pigs into a stainless steel drum with a handle that someone turns frequently. He then pours in some of the 20 litres of fresh morning milk, not pasteurized – the boudin won’t turn out right if the milk is pasteurized – and he gradually adds egg yolks, herbs and spices mixed ahead and the onion and fat mixture. More blood, more milk. And then suddenly everyone is moving fast, with the drum turning and the casings quickly filled when they are put on a spigot, tied and the string snipped.
The pile of uncooked boudin grows. They feel and behave like water balloons, meaning that every now and again a just-filled boudin’s casing gives and the bloody mess goes flying. It’s hard not to think about the person who has to do the laundry later.
The sausages and the boudin are simmered at 70C for 35 minutes. They are good for three to four days, and what isn’t eaten then will be thrown away. They are served warm, set gently in simmering water again for 20 minutes to heat them through.
Given the restaurant’s customers and people who simply stop by to take home a few boudins (one per person as a rule), there are not likely to be many left over from the nearly 200 of each Sprenger makes on Thursday.
Dinner, a remarkable treat
The hotel restaurant is justifiably famous and the main dish, with a sample of all the fresh pork products at our request, is a remarkable feat of flavour, delicacy and balance. The acidic apples and sauerkraut, “not to be eaten together” Sprenger cautions us, are exactly right with the meat. The boudin is so far from what you can buy in a supermarket that it seems it should have another name. When made right, it has a silky, shiny surface. The chef cuts one slice off the end and then cuts it lengthwise so you see that it is prepared as it should be.
Dessert, a must
To my amazement, there is room later for pastry chef Fabien Larcopage’s creations, and the restaurant is worth a visit for this alone. The young (28) chef studied under Marc Meurin, two macarons in the French Michelin guide: he is skilled and creative.
Note: Saanenmoser is a delightful little village in the heart of the Gstaad region of gentle hills set against rocky Alpine peaks. The colours are just starting to turn for autumn and the famous Simmenthal cattle are down from the higher slopes. It’s the perfect time to visit the area. The Golf Hotel still has some rooms for the weekend and it’s the perfect place to relax, with a spa and swimming pool and scores of hiking trails, and bikes available. I was with a colleague who, speaking French, summed up the hotel well: “It’s not a blingbling place; this is cocooning.”