A Swiss whey of life

From the window of the plane, the dissimilarly shaded green swathes of the fields look like a patchwork blanket. A few Lego-like houses break the monotony. Soon they start shrinking as the plane ascends, until they are mere dots. Getting back from Switzerland, I am carrying with me a sunburnt nose, chapped lips and a digestive system burdened with kilos of cheese (thanks to countless helpings of rösti and fondue). But I am not beating myself up about it. After all, it’s Switzerland. Also, if you have trudged up a green hill on a cold drizzly morning for a batch of Täschalp’s local best, then you deserve to wash it down as much as you can with the house wine. And that’s exactly what I did.

At Täschalp, you can expect the best of the alpine world. Meadows that cling to the swells and dips of mountains, streams fed by melting snow and tracts of flowers adding colour to the ludicrous amount of green. Barely any humans. Just happy, grazing cows. The village lies five km from Zermatt in southwest Switzerland. The lone cluster of wooden cottages where we are standing, lies in the shadow of the 14,730-ft high Täschhorn mountain. “The verdant meadows with the Alpine herbs provides the best nourishment for our cows. This in turn infuses a spicy aroma to the cheese — a highly valuable flavour,” explains Tony, the owner of a small home-run cheese unit in Täschalp. Tony’s nameless unit has been around for almost half a century. Everyone in the village readily point travellers in its direction.

We enter his cosy kitchen, grateful for the warmth from the large wood-fire stove. We had woken up that morning to a murky grey sky, a persistent drizzle and the need for additional layers of clothes. We arrive at the slim dining-cum-kitchen area. A wooden door to the wash area sways open and then swings close every few minutes. And then we see him.

Arthur doesn’t have even a minute to spare. There’s lots to do before he can hang up his plastic gloves for the day. He grunts as he heaves open the iron door of the hot kiln to check on the chessi (a large cauldron-like kettle), shuffles around the kitchen to bring some cold water to clean it up, and then steps outside to whistle to the cows to return home. In the middle of all this, a reticent nod is offered as a welcome.

Life in Poland is the stark opposite, with the mountains far from Arthur. Back there, in his home country, he is a truck driver. Here, in the Swiss Alps, the day is divided between 40 cows and the warm kitchen. A handful of Polish cheesemakers come to southern Switzerland every summer for an extra buck. The sparse infrastructure on the hill consists of a kitchen, the cowshed and a small quarters shared by these artisans.

Switzerland, among other superlatives, offers the widest array of cheese in the world — more than 400. In Täschalp, it is made from cows’ milk in the summer months (July until the end of September). About 40 cows arrive from the lower parts like Bern and the foothills to graze in the valley. Every day, more than 300 litres of milk is converted into wheels of cheese (about 30 in all, weighing 25-40 kg each), which are then matured for up to nine months. They are then exported, used in the village or given to the owners of the cows. To distinguish this type of cheese from other kinds in the country, it is christened the ‘Alp’. Smoke from the wood fire, local herbs and individual touch determine its flavour, colour, shape, maturity and level of hardness. This means that you could be looking at several varieties coming out of this small unit. The main produce is raclette cheese, a fondue mix and yoghurt for the winters.

The tour of the unit is incomplete without tasting the produce in the traditional way. Seated around the kitchen table, we sample all the different types, washing it down with crisp white wine. The scene is reminiscent of a family lunch in the village. Conversations flow from the transportation of cows, to the harsh life in the hills and the miles that the finished cheese travels to different parts of the world. The group is getting more boisterous with the combination of wine and cheese and even the reticent Arthur, breaks into a local song, usually sung at the Alpine Cheese Fest in September at the foothills of Visp — to mark the end of the cheesemaking season.

A month after this cheese-filled lunch on the top of Täschalp, I find myself humming the same tune in a supermarket in Delhi. It must have been the fragrance from the freezer that I went past. For years, Switzerland to me has meant Roger Federer, chocolates, watches, Matterhorn and cheese — in that order. Now, Täschalp cheese trumps the list.

Supriya Sehgal is a freelance travel writer based in Delhi

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