Game Season
Wild, Chasse, Cacciagione Time For The Swiss
Sep 22, 2009 Gail Mangold-Vine
In October and November, in all the different language regions of Switzerland, restaurants post signs outside their premises, put ads in the local papers, add the news to their website: It’s game season!
The Swiss are still very close to the land, so throughout the year there are many different food seasons, like asparagus in spring, strawberry in summer and wild mushroom in the fall. These are also made much of in restaurants, but in food stores as well because such products are easier for home cooks to prepare. Venison, wild boar, hare or pheasant, on the other hand, are a different matter.
Allowing for regional variations and cooking styles, such as traditional or more contemporary, obviously game season specials will be far from identical everywhere. However, a classic prix-fixe menu would feature the following, starting with pumpkin or chestnut soup, possibly a fricassee of wild mushrooms, or a wild boar or hare paté or terrine. The main dish is usually venison (deer meat), served with gravy, spaetzle, Brussels sprouts, red cabbage, and a cranberry-style red berry accompaniment often presented in poached, scooped-out pear or apple halves. Grapes too are often used as a garnish. Desserts will likely include either apples or pears, grapes, or chestnuts, maybe a gratin of red berries.
Spaetzle
Usually more of a Germanic thing, many Swiss-French restaurants (in cantons Valais, Vaud, Fribourg, Neuchâtel, Jura and Geneva) also feature spaetzle with game meals. These are of course the noodles or dumplings made out of a flour, egg and salt dough that can be passed through a special press so as to assume a noodle form, or shaped into small oval or even round pieces that are dumped in boiling water and rise to the top when done.
Spaetzle are heavy, but they mop up the gravy well, and they are balanced by the fermented red cabbage and the fruit of the typical game meal.
Wine To Accompany Game
With venison or wild boar, for example, a fairly concentrated red wine is usually recommended. However, slightly lighter Swiss local reds are often drunk, or even – in the Swiss-German part of the country, particularly around Zurich – partially fermented grape juice called Sauser or Suuser. October and November are also the peak time for that particular seasonal delight, which comes in red and white, and is sweet, just a little fizzy, and only ever so lightly alcoholic.
Mulled red wine, however, may be the preferred option during the chilly fall season when – as is the practice at many outdoor fetes such as hunting parties, winery open house days, or big-ticket holiday celebrations like the Escalade in Geneva in December – a wild boar is cooked over an open fire.
Readers interested in fall food specialties in Switzerland may also wish to read Brisolée: An Autumn Repast.
Boar, Weinlaender Wildspezialitaeten, Thalheim
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