My Favorite Celebration in Switzerland

Leanne Sottas from Switzerland

My favorite celebration in Switzerland is the Benichon because my parents invite their friends our home and we eat together. It’s very a fun day for me. We celebrate it in Fribourg on the 2nd weekend in October. We are celebrating the feast of the harvest and the descent of the herds of the cows.

For this party, some people wear the traditional costumes. The girls wear the “Dzaquillon” and the boys wear the “Bredzon”.

We have a special meal for this celebration – Benichon Menu.

We start with the appetizer. We eat a special bread with Benichon Mustard. It is called “cuchaule”. We drink white wines.

After that we have the starter. We eat cabbage soup.

For the main course, we eat ham, sausage, carrots, beans, bacon and potato. My favorite food in this plate is the pear “à botzi”. We cook the pears in a saucepan with red wine, cinnamon, sugar and anise. It’s very tasty !

For the dessert, we eat meringues with Gruyère double cream. It’s the traditional dessert of Switzerland. If you come to Switzerland, you must try it ! After the meal, when we serve coffee, we often eat traditional homemade biscuits. For example we eat “bricelet”, “pain d’anis.”

After the meal, we all go to the village to continue the party with the other villagers. We can dance, play games, have a drink and listen to traditional music. In the afternoon, there are the parade of cows. It’s a very fun day.