Gruyères!

Gruyères: The SCR's Jerusalem, Mecca and Yankee Stadium Rolled Into One...

Welcome back Cheeseheads (as we assume our dedicated followers have by now dubbed themselves) to a Very Special Episode of the Swiss Cheese Report. In this instalment, the SCR makes its long overdue pilgrimage to the spiritual home of swiss cheese, the medieval mountain hamlet of Gruyères.

View from the Castle

Gruyères is located just north-east of Montreux, on top of an isolated hill in the canton of Fribourg. Today it is famous primarily as the home of the eponymously delicious hard yellow Gruyère cheese that is protected with a vigilance and vigour worthy of a walled castle town by the modern-day pikemen of the feared Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC). Reminiscent of the heroic House of Gruyères's famous victory over Charles the Bold at the Battle of Morat, the AOC has recently triumphed in its struggle to uphold the sanctity of the Gruyère geographical indication - or appelation d'origine - against such (unsurprisingly) French pretenders as Comte and Beaufort in the so-called by me Great Fromage Wars of the early 2000s.

Tapestry: Triomphe des Fromages Gruyères

Make no mistake -- Gruyères is no one-trick pony in the highly pony-trick-laden world of European dairy gastronomie. Bored with the ho-hum bread and cheese standby, they have mastered the refreshingly different bread in cheese variant, inviting visitors to sample their delectable melty cheese fondue. The town also produces the myocardial-infarction-inducing Gruyères double-cream which dairy scientists estimated at a whopping 48% mfc before their delicate measuring instruments succumbed to the sheer excess of it all. There is also, you will no doubt be shocked to learn, a highly rated chocolatier, Maison Cailler, in nearby Broc.

But Gruyères fortunes did not always rely solely on its aptitude for exploiting the production of Switzerland's favoured bovine population. Once the town was a centre of political intrigue and a sought after ally by the competing interests of the Holy Roman Empire, the House of Savoy, the Old Swiss Confederacy and the Duchy of Burgundy, among others. This was the combined effect of a sturdy castle, a remote locale and a certain pragmatic political flexibility.

Castles Were a Strong Claim to Relevance in Medieval Times.

Presumably Where the Knights Got Drunk

Nineteen Counts of Gruyères called the castle home. Alas, it all came to ignominious end with Michel who died in hock to the cantons of Fribourg and Bern which upon his death claimed his lands and promptly turned the whole place into a whopping money-making success by opting to stop fighting in wars and instead to focus on supplying tasty and easily transported cheese to feed the growing armies of the many neighbouring kingdoms and duchies who were engaged in the the perpetual fighting that was the hallmark of medieval Central Europe. So Gruyères was kind of like the original Haliburton... just with cheese.

The Castle Interior

No Clever Caption, Just Pretty

We spent most of our time walking around the town and checking out the castle, which Sam liked because we let him run around on the assumption that if the Austro-Hungarian Empire couldn't break the place it would probably survive our son.

Sam Tests Our Assumption

In complete juxtaposition to this medieval architecture is a cafe and museum just outside the castle gates by the man who designed the Aliens for the James Cameron blockbuster. It completely does not fit in this traditional Swiss village -- but then it's fair to say it wouldn't really fit anywhere.

Weird

To recover from this rather unsettling experience, we decided to sample some of the local wares and to eat as much cheese as possible in the most stereotypically Swiss looking place conceivable. (The double-cream we took home for later.) This place was just what the doctor ordered:

Le Chalet

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the sign says "Action Raclette". We later learned that "action" is Swiss for "promotion" or "sale". So, sadly, the raclette was no more exciting than usual. After the Alien cafe though, this was just fine by us...

Your SCR Correspondents: Happy Pilgrims

Until next time dear readers. And thanks to Sarah Mak for some great photos.