The slightly smoky, mildly sweet aroma of Bündner Gerstensuppe (barley soup) wafted through the kitchen of the Culinarium Alpinum, a former Capuchin monastery in Switzerland’s Canton Nidwalden. The earthy and nutty grains floated in a broth flavored with leek, carrot, and celery root, and enriched with dried and cured Bündnerfleisch (air-dried beef). The soup anchored a comforting winter meal. Our morning in the kitchen with Neuchâtel-based food writer and cookbook author Heddi Nieuwsma was the delightful culmination of a culinary retreat in Stans, Switzerland.
The Culinarium Alpinum
The monastery is now an atmospheric Swiss Historic Hotel. It has an excellent restaurant, a seasonal garden, and a large teaching kitchen. The Culinarium’s premises and services focus on the culinary heritage of the Alps. Our culinary retreat was just one of the many activities in a year-round program of events.
“The importance of local and seasonal ingredients—and the close connection with the people who produce our food—is something quite special here,” Heddi explained as she welcomed us to the retreat. Over the weekend, we sampled cheese in the Culinarium’s Alp-Sbrinz cellar. We enjoyed seasonal dinners prepared by the restaurant’s chefs. We cooked in the Culinarium’s spacious teaching kitchen. And we visited a cheese producer and a cider maker.
Several participants arrived early for a winter fishing excursion at Lake Lungern. For Tom and me, the weekend was doubly special. We were finally able to spend time IRL with Heddi, a long-time online acquaintance we first met through her website, Cuisine Helvetica.
In planning the retreat, Heddi wanted to bring people who love food together to share and make new connections. And in this, she certainly succeeded. As it happened, all of us are expats who have lived in Switzerland for some time. We enjoyed comparing the local traditions we’ve discovered and shared how foods in shops and on tables vary across the country. The retreat began with an Apéro and a tour of the monastery, followed by a Sbrinz cheese tasting. A seasonal dinner in our private dining room—the first of two from the Culinarium’s restaurant staff—showcased local ingredients.
Snowshoes, cheese, and cider
On Saturday, a gondola brought us up to Wirzweli, a mountain village that welcomes families for hikes and pony rides in summer, and during the cold months, winter and snowshoe hikers. At the village church, our local guide helped us snap into snowshoes. Soon we were on our way amid snow flurries, icy patches crunching underfoot.
We snowshoed over cotton-candy mounds of fresh snow into a forest and along a trail marked with pink poles. Our destination was Huismatt Gade, a dairy farm owned by Simon and Anita Zumbühl-Marty.
Simon, a fifth-generation dairy farmer, showed us around his aging cellar for Alpkäse, or Alp cheese. We sampled cheeses that mingled salty and sour flavor notes. We tasted a fresh, light, and creamy goat cheese. In the barn, the grassy scent of damp winter fodder introduced us to his herd of thirty cows. As we toured, Simon described the challenges his family faces as cheese producers amid climate change.
Back in the valley, we visited Nidwaldner Edelsaft, a small-scale cider producer. The aroma of apples and fermentation filled the cidery as owner Paul Odermatt and his daughters offered tastings. Sparkling cider and a ginger variation on traditional cider spritzed into our glasses. The apple liquor had a sweet finish. The Odermatts pride themselves on their orchard’s biodiversity, on their careful washing and hand-sorting of the fruit, and on their use of solar energy for processing.
Simon and Paul work sustainably, producing a limited range of products in small quantities. Their lifestyles based on family goals rather than economic ambition. Neither wants to scale up to industrial levels. Rather, they focus on innovation and quality, serving a regional market. Simon’s goat cheese and Paul’s ginger-cider come to market this season.
Fondue to remember
A highlight of our mountain excursion was our lunch stop at Gasthaus Restaurant Waldegg, Ruth and Ernst Rechsteiner’s restaurant and mountain hotel in Wirzweli. There, we sheltered from snow flurries in a Swiss chalet, purpose-built to serve up fondue warmed over coals.
With a flourish, Ernst Rechsteiner introduced the house specialty, a four-cheese fondue made with Appenzeller, Gruyere, Vacherin Fribourgois, and Emmentaler cheeses. We enjoyed the fondue with boiled potatoes and rustic bread cubes. Cornichons and pickled pearl onions provided an acidic balance to the cheese.
The fire crackled as our host offered us our choice of black or herbal tea or a light chardonnay. After pouring the wine, he tucked the bottle onto a natural refrigerator: a shelf built into the chalet’s slanted roof.
We tucked in, hungry after our morning outdoors. The fondue and the potatoes had a surprising depth of flavor. We swirled sturdy country bread into the bubbling pots set on a rack over glowing coals. We passed the condiments, potatoes, and bread until the fondue pots were empty. Afterward, with snow still coming down outside the chalet, we lingered over coffee.
In the kitchen with Heddi
Heddi organized our Sunday cooking session with Swiss precision, featuring a lunch menu that combined dishes from across the country. “For such a small country, certain food traditions are deeply rooted in one region while the rest of Switzerland may hardly know them,” Heddi told us.
The dishes were regional, seasonal, and resoundingly Swiss. In addition to the warming Bündner Gerstensuppe from Graubünden, we made Flange, a sturdy bread ring from Vaud, and Chäschüechli, savory cheese tartlets that are crowd-pleasers across Switzerland. A salad of winter greens, crisp apples, and nuts is a classic accompaniment. Ours was tossed with a tangy honey-mustard dressing. For dessert, we made Drusenzelte, from Canton Glarus. The flat, crumbly cookie-like cakes were big and buttery, sweetened with raisins.
We were not in a grandmother’s kitchen, but rather cooking along with a friend. Easygoing and collegial, Heddi told us where she sources ingredients and showed us how she rolls dough. With help from Culinarium sous chef Beda Röthlisberger, she made sure we did not let the bread burn or the soup boil over, through all the chopping, mixing, and laughter. After we pulled the Drusenzelte from the ovens, it was time to dish up steaming bowls of soup and enjoy a final meal together.
At our own Swiss table
The soup, chewy and slightly sweet from the slow-cooked vegetables, had an earthy note from the barley. Thinly sliced Bündnerfleisch, air-cured beef from Canton Graubünden, gave it a subtle umami. Over lunch, we talked about the food we had prepared—our Chäschüechli had been made with local cheese, and the bread with butter instead of the traditional lard—and went back for seconds. Sated, we wrapped up a picnic’s worth of Flange, Chäschüechli, and Drusenzelte to add to our other food souvenirs from the weekend.
Heddi opened bottles from our cider-makers’ visit. “If I planned a weekend in Switzerland for myself, these are exactly the activities I would choose,” she said, opening bottles from our cider-makers’ visit. We lifted our glasses to Heddi for bringing us together and for the exhilarating time we had in the mountains.
Food-traveling, abroad and at home
On city food walks, through wine and food tastings, or in home and restaurant kitchens, Tom and I enjoy learning about cultures and traditions through food experiences. Our trip through Vietnam was just one example, early on. Traveling the country (almost) end-to-end, we spent two days in Hoi An with Tranh Diem Vy, well known for promoting Vietnamese home cooking. She helped us understand the distinctive historical and geographical influences on that “country in three bowls.”
Switzerland is a small country with diverse traditions across its 26 cantons. Much like our time in Hoi An, Heddi’s culinary retreat in Stans was not all about technique. Heddi did not just demonstrate the technique for kneading a poolish-leavened dough into lard-free Flange revistée. In collaboration with the Culinarium Alpinum, she organized a weekend of experiences and flavors that helped us understand Switzerland’s landscape of mountains and valleys as part and parcel of the Swiss culinary experience.
Want to know more?
- Stans, in Switzerland’s Canton Nidwalden, is just a hop and a skip from Lucerne and easily accessible by public transportation. From Stans, local trains, buses, and gondolas connect to Nidwalden attractions and outdoor adventure opportunities.
- The Culinarium Alpinum offers an excellent restaurant and comfortable guest accommodations.
- Heddi’s publishes delicious recipes in her Swiss cookbook series, on her website, and in the Swiss Recipes newsletter via Substack.
