Zibelemärit - Annual Onion Market Day In Bern, Switzerland

It's not like the Bernese only have one market day a year, actually, their farmer's market takes place twice a week on Tuesday and Saturday mornings, but the Zibelemärit (Bernese German for onion market) is a special market and you guessed it, its main product is the onion. It always takes place on the fourth Monday in November and actually draws people from all over Switzerland and even from abroad by the busload or by special trains to the capital, Bern. 

Growing up in Bern, I thought I want to share this with y'all - not really a "Where In The Hell Is Carlton" subject - but maybe you may get inspired for a trip overseas.

There are two diverging stories behind it, history says that the first market was held in the mid 19th century when the first railroads started to arrive in Bern and farmers from around the "Seeland" (the mostly agricultural area around the three lakes of Murten, Biel, and Neuenburg) converged to Bern to sell their recent harvest. Legend says, and that's the part my grandpa instilled into me, that Bern had a fire in 1405. To thank the people from Fribourg who came and helped to tidy the place up again, they were granted the right to sell their fresh produce. But the special market in fall isn't mentioned in the books till 1439, according to myswitzerland.com.

Whatever the "real" reason, as kids growing up, the Zibelemärit was one of the "cool" days of the year. Not only did school finish early, but we all would participate in the "Gstungg" (melee). The main artery through town, Spitalgasse, and Marktgasse were closed to traffic and us youngsters would walk them up and down, throwing confetti into other people's faces. So watch out, don't open your mouth to say hello to somebody you may meet, some naughty kids may fill it with a well-placed shot of confetti. Often people would wear "leis" of sugar candy onions around their necks.
On the near Schützenmatt, the carnival with its rides and midway games stopped for the yearly visit. Growing older, we often went a day or two earlier than Monday to check out the thrilling joyrides, as on Zibelemärit day, most often there were too many people and the rides were much shorter.

Growing even older and not being interested in the "Gstungg" or the carnival anymore, we would help a family friend, sell their braided onion strands and wreaths and make some extra pocket money.  Their market stall was under the watchful eye of the Swiss Parliament building which you can see towering above the market on the top photo. As you see in the video by filmaffen below, onions are also made into dolls and other decorative tchotchkes. And onions are sold, in every shape and form, according to myswitzerland, there are now over 10 metric tons of onions that change hands. Some years later the "Chachelimärit" (Chacheli meaning a pottery cup or small bowl) became part of it and expanded not only the goods being offered, but also expanding the market even further throughout downtown. The expansion also brought a ton of more tourists into town. So to see the "true" market with fewer people we would often go there between 4 and 6 am in the morning.



But the market is not all about buying stuff, it's also about meeting friends and indulge in food and spirits. Specialty foods being offered by almost all restaurants that day include onion and cheese tarts, onion soup with a slice of Züpfe (braided bread) and to make swallowing much easier, a lot of white wine. If it's really cold and it well can be, "Cafe Fertig" (coffee with schnaps) or Glühwein (wassail) will warm you up to stand the chill. According to the weather forecast, it should be in the mid-thirties F (2- 6 C) on Zibelemärit day.



Sources: Images bern.ch, myswitzerland.com also for some info, youtube (filmaffen)

Bernese Apple Pie In America (Recipe Included)

Born and raised in Europe, baking in the US can be quite an undertaking.

Growing up with the metric system and convert my old recipes from grams into ounces, from Celsius into Fahrenheit is one thing and can be achieved quite easily, sometimes even in the head without pen and paper or even a calculator.

But there is way more to that, as Americans when it comes to baking often only use volume measurements and we use simple units of weight.

Example: 150 grams of "regular" sugar is 5.3 ounces or 5 3/10 ounces (weight to weight) - but the required amount in volume in cups will vary with whatever ingredient you will measure. The volume of 150 grams of regular sugar and 150 grams of powdered sugar do not fill the same cup (of tea.)

That's where the internet can come in handy and a regular "apple pie a la mode de la grand-mere" (Grandma's apple pie) becomes a high tech researched google R&D project.

Back to our sugar problem - a recipe (not mine below) asks for 150 grams of regular sugar and that equals 2/3 of a US cup. It also asks for powdered sugar and just to show the difference, I choose the same amount - 150 grams of powdered sugar is still 5 3/10 ounces - weight remains weight - but the volume of powdered sugar is much bigger. So with the help of the converter at the Traditional Oven website - we'll find that 150 grams of powdered sugar equal 1.2 or 1 1/5 US cups (almost twice the size).

So after all the hard math here comes the hand on part, if you would like to surprise your friends with this easy made, but very tasty apple pie (see pic on top). All measurements are non-metric adapted for the US. So let's have a blast (or better just some fun) in the kitchen.

for the dough: 2 eggs 3/8 cup sugar 1 1/5 cup flour 1/2 tsp Baking Powder                                 8 1/2 tbsp melted Butter

for the filling: ~ 2 lbs Apples (or other fruit) 3 tbsp Lemon Juice 7 1/2 tbsp Butter 2/5 cup Powdered Sugar 1 tbsp Vanilla Pudding Powder               3 eggs 1 lemon - grated zest

Let's start with the dough - mix the eggs and the sugar and stir till creamy. Add flour, baking powder and the melted butter and mix well. Take a spring form pan (9"), butter the bottom and the sides and add the dough. Spread evenly and with the help of a spoon form a ring, coming up the sides, about 1 1/2 inches in height. Keep the dough cool (fridge), preheat oven to 360.

Tip: if you have a problem forming the ring on the side, let the dough cool in the freezer for a couple a minutes and then try to drag it up the pan wall.

For the filling: you roughly need a little less than 2  lbs of tart cooking apples. Peel them if you want to, else just core them and slice them about 1/2 inch thick. And then cut the slices into about thumb nail size pieces. Put all the apples in a bowl and pour the juice of a lemon (or two) over the apples, depending on how tart or sweet you want to have your final pie. The lemon juice also keeps the apples from "browning" immediately.
Take the really soft butter, the powdered sugar and Vanilla Pudding powder - mix and stir till creamy.
Separate the eggs in yolks and whites, add the lemon zest to egg yolk and add to the mix, beat the egg white till stiff and fold in. Carefully fold in the apple pieces.
Pour the whole mixture on top of the dough and spread evenly.

Bake for about 50 minutes (original recipe). I found that ovens here sometimes need a tad longer than that, check with knitting needle to see if the inside of your pie is done. If your pie browns to fast on top, cover with tin foil.

Let the whole pie cool out in the spring form pan, then take out, Dust the top with some powdered sugar - I never do. Serve by itself or with whipped cream or even add some Vanilla ice cream to it.

E Guete! 


P.S. Over the years I also played around with some other fruits - and created plum, peach and pear varieties. I also added a shot of Bourbon to the apples and peaches before, or even doubled the Vanilla Pudding powder amount, to add a bit more of Vanilla flavor to it. The recipe is so easy, that you can creatively change and experiment with some stuff.

Sources: http://www.traditionaloven.com