I recently professed my love (again) for Zürich and before that, for one of my favorite regions in France, Alsace (by the German border).  There’s yet another region in France that holds a spot near and dear to my heart, and that’s the Pays Basque (on the very opposite end of the country by the Spanish border).  While living in Clermont-Ferrand (in the Auvergne) from 2001 to 2002, I spent a week in the French Basque country and was beyond charmed by a culture, cuisine, landscape and language (Euskara) all its own.  Ten years later, I finally returned with my husband and parents, overjoyed to share it all with them.  I returned to the villages I have been thinking about all these years, and brought my taste memories back to life.

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Whenever I visit a new town, I’m not only on a mission to discover the sweet scene, but also to spend time at a local market.  It’s a perfect introduction to the culinary landscape, and always so interesting to observe the exchanges between proud vendors and their loyal customers, and most of all, see what people eat there !  What seems completely normal and mundane in one country (like the Swiss’ multicolored hard-boiled eggs) can be exotic and exciting – or just weird – to another.

Right now at the markets in Zürich, bright red strawberries and stalks of rhubarb are in the spotlight, but fat, white asparagus are taking up a lot of prime real estate too. While the latter has become common for me, living here in the German part of Switzerland and making regular visits to Zürich’s Bürkliplatz and Oerlikon markets, white asparagus were once strange and unfamiliar.  For me, asparagus were green, showing again that one person’s apple is another person’s rambutan.

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