50th Anniversary Meal

Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of my host grandparents, so the whole family (with me, 21 strong) went out to lunch at a gourmet restauruant.  It must have been really fancy, because they gave us a menu telling us, not our choices of food, but the schedule in which we would eat it.  We started out with schmooze food, which was crackers and bread smeared with various orange and grey pastes and surprisingly quite tasty.  Then we moved on to drinks.  The adults had champagne and white wine, and I had a Coke.  As usual, I drained the small glass in a few moments, only to shudder with chagrin, as I remembered the fact that refills don't come free in Switzerland.
(Out of all the cultural differences and contrasting customs I've discovered in my six weeks living here, that undoubtedly taken the most getting used to. How can a country call itself civilized if it doesn't provide its own people with the simple courtesy of endless beverages? It's barbaric!)  At that point we could cease schmoozing if we pleased, to sit down and eat a bowl of soup so disgusting, that the kid's side of the table burst with laughter each time someone courageosly endeavored to take a bite. (In Switzerland, it is imperative to finish all that one is served, both for the sake of the chef's feelings, and because wasting is frowned upon.  Failing that, one must at least taste everything.  Throughout the course of this meal, however, I noticed several surreptitious transgressions of the rule.)  The soup was cleared away, and a slab of fish, surrounded by various unidentifiable piles of mush, vegetables, and a thick army green sauce.  Despite it's appearance, it tasted fine, and I polished it off fairly quickly, noting few grimaces from my comrades.  The plates were again cleared away, only to be replaced yet another dish of mush and meat (brown and maroon).  We had finally arrived at the main course.  As it turned out, the meat was deer from "la chasse," the local hunt that takes place from October to November, and the sides, included beets, liver, and blood sausage - the Freshman prank food of the day.  Few plates were cleared.  (Eating here seems to be a very seasonal thing here.  Every food, even the varieties of bread and salad, are reserved for only about two months of the year.  The last cycle was Benichon, and now we've moved into La Chasse, and the routine meals seem to have changed.  Perhaps it's because they don't import much from abroad.)  The plates, imperceptibly lighter, were cleared, and it was finally time for dessert.  The waiter came around to ask each person whether they wanted the cheese or the sweet dessert.  Having developed a suspicion of Swiss desserts (and of my own translation abilities), I opted for the less risky cheese platter.  They delivered the dessert, which turned out to be crackers and creme with rasberries, blueberries, and raisinettes (damn!), and I got up to select my cheese from the waiter at a separate table.  As I approached, one of the uncles called out "Pas en Anglais!" which, of course, the waiter heard, and we proceeded to conduct the whole selection process in English (Fortunately.  I don't think I know enough cheese description French words to an make educated and practical cheese selection).  As with any cheese platter, there were the inevitable unpalatables, but overall, I enjoyed the selection of Swiss cheeses.  (On a cheese related note: At the AFS weekend last month, one of the counselors told me a story of his exchange experience in America.  He had gone to Subway for the first time with his friends, and the sandwhich maker asked him what type of cheese he wanted.  "What types do you have?" he aked.  "We have cheddar, provelone, swiss cheese-"  "Swiss cheese?" he interrupted, "What type of Swiss cheese?"  "Uh, normal swiss cheese..." the sanwhich maker replied.  "Yes, but what kind of Swiss cheese?" he asked again, and would have persisted, had not his friend interevened.  "He'll have provolone.")

After the meal, I roamed the city a bit with the other similarly aged cousins (Derek, Maxime, Luc, and Alain.  We passed by the annual Morat-Fribourg 17K run (which commemorates the messenger who, in 1476, ran from Morat to Fribourg to announce the victory against Charles the Bold, only to collapse from exhaustion after declaring the news...sound familiar?...), and we ended up stopping at some sort of game room, with all sorts of pinball machines, and foosball tables and what not.  Again, I witnessed the foosball magic of the Swiss, and Maxime showed us a machine gambling reaction-test machine, that he claimed he could use as a sure source of income.  And he proceeded to win 30 F.