May
27

Alexa Abroad! Part Zwei Point Funf.

(Funf, believe it or not, is a real word; it means “five.” Incidentally, it is also the muffled sound of something falling off a shelf inside a closet, and is awfully fun to say. Funf! Funf!)

Where was I? Oh yes. The Potato Council.

In America, something called The Potato Council would likely be a marketing organization—a federation of potato producers, maybe, devoted to the mission of increasing the citizenry’s potato consumption. But in Switzerland, The Potato Council has a more serious job to do: it is responsible for regulating which potatoes are appropriate for which function.

Some potatoes, for instance, are for boiling, while others ought properly to used for french fries. How they make these complicated decisions, I do not know. In the course of preparing this post, I did find the website of SWISSPATAT (kartoffel.ch, kartoffel being the adorable German word for potato), which I assume (there is no English version) is the Potato Council my mother has told me so much about. I also found this press release on the site of the International Potato Council, about Switzerland’s 2008 potato postage stamp. It was made to honor the International Year of the Potato, which I totally forgot to celebrate.

Anyhow, there was recently a terrible potato scandal (potato scandal!) that made even the non-potato-related news over in Switzerland. Ready?

Someone tried to pass off as Fondue Potatoes potatoes which were not suitable for fondue.

I know. I’ll wait while you get your salts. First Darfur, now this.

Like I said, the scandal was big news, and how my mother first heard about The Potato Council, thus learning the secret of Switzerland’s uniformly excellent french fries. Which I think is why I brought up the subject of potato regulation in the first place.

So! Sunday afternoon, after lunch at The Fish Place, we walked back through town.
Oberwil
WindowOld
One of the things I loved about Switzerland was the mix of modern and traditional architecture, old painted shutters sitting smack next to glass and steel.
Swiss Mix
We wandered up a hill…
On the roadPath
…where there was an excellent view of the psychiatric clinic that once housed Zelda Fitzgerald.
HopitalKlinik
{Ed. Note: Is that woman a patient, or merely an off-duty member of The Potato Council, out for a stroll?}

We saw what I am fairly certain were TWIN NUNS! in full regalia. Either that, or a pair of nuns who had lived together for so long that they had started to resemble one another. I prefer the TWIN NUNS! theory, myself. I can’t find the picture I snapped of them (TWIN NUNS!) but when I do, you will be the first to know.

Our destination was the farm behind my mother’s building, a farm she can see from her bedroom window.
View

I’m not entirely sure what the below arrangement is—with the accordion-playing clown gnome, the albino princess, and the curtsying maiden—but I thought it was a delightful way to accessorize an otherwise humdrum chicken coop.
No idea

But the purpose of our farm visit, obviously, was to see the goats:
Mother's DayGoats!
Carry On
The one above was just the right size for my carry-on bag, but in honor of Mother’s Day, which it was, I left him with his parents. Also, his parents had pointy-looking horns.

(Next time, little goat. Next time).

As long as we’re on the subject, I feel morally bound to tell you that the whole goat/Switzerland connection has been overstated. I saw only THREE GOATS the entire time I was there. That’s 1/3 of a goat per day, which is pathetic. Worse, there is an astounding lack of goat-themed memorabilia. Instead, every Swiss souvenir seems to feature a COW. A cow! Please. You can see cows ANYWHERE.
Take note, Swiss PR people (I’m sure there is a Goat Council of some kind, come to think of it): goats are Switzerland’s greatest natural resource! Tourists will stop visiting if they show up and you have closeted all of your goats away. 1/3 of a goat per day is hardly worth the airfare.

TO BE CONTINUED, AGAIN…

By Alexa | Posted in Ceci N'est Pas Une Ecrivaine |