Eating the Alps

I Visit the Headquarters of Mountain Food in a Monastery in Switzerland

// Last month I spent a whirlwind week in Switzerland, riding public transport using the amazing, all-inclusive Swiss Travel Pass from SBB, the national rail operator. (Remember that movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles, where every form of transport fails for Chicago-bound Steve Martin? Imagine the Swiss version: Trains, Trams, and Funiculars, where everything actually worked, and the hero gets to every appointment in comfort, and on time.) I was lucky to have time for a stop at the Culinarium Alpinum, in the village of Stans, near Luzern.

I love sampling local foods, and I love hiking in the mountains. I've come to believe that mountain food is in its own category. I've had llama steak and coca tea in the Andes, cloud-like momos and pots of yak butter tea in the Himalayas, and baked beans and bison in the Canadian Rockies. But Europe offers the most intriguing and complex cuisine I've ever encountered in mountain settings. That's why, when I learned there was an institution devoted to culinary heritage of the Alps—specifically the gastronomy of the Swiss Alps—I knew I had to pay a visit.