Day 16: Raclette, St. Leodegar, Mysterious Cheeses

Day 16


It is a rather pointy place, St. Leodegar.

I spent another day walking around town, ducking into various buildings and exploring the Old Town.


Lucerne is infested with venomous Mute Swans. Here they are attacking an innocent woman.


View up from the church.

I decided to go inside the Church of St. Leodegar, Lucerne's iconic pointy-towered church. The Renaissance-style church was built between 1633 and 1639, on the base of a former Roman basilica which burned entirely to the ground. There had been a church on the site as early as the 8th century - the pleasantly named Pippin the Short had donated an abbey in the name of St. Maurice to the area at that time. The church today functions as both a monastary church and a parish church, and also hosts a considerable stream of tourists. It's truly lovely, both inside and outside: the paintings and decorations within are incredible, and I enjoyed checking them out. Insofar as Lucerne's dragons go, some good accounts may be found here about the beasts connection to the historic church.

Here's one of the stories:

One autumn, a cooper (barrel-maker) was foraging on Pilatus for tree branches, to make hoops for his barrels. He stumbled and fell headlong into a deep cave, coming to rest between two female dragons, who were pleased by his arrival and offered him a dragon stone. He soon became hungry. Observing how the dragons repeatedly licked at a particular boulder in the cave, he did likewise and so nourished himself throughout the winter. When spring arrived, one dragon flew away from her winter lair. The other circled cajolingly around the cooper, as if to persuade him that it was time to depart. She crept to the mouth of the cave and hoisted the cooper out by the tip of her tail. Thus rescued, the cooper returned home to his family.

See, dragons only eat people occasionally. The cooper, fittingly grateful for his rescue, had the whole story embroidered on a cloth and donated it to the church. It is still there.


Esoteric mushrooms gathered from Switzerland's fecund slopes, or some junk like that. I want these very much.


Fruits - the cherries up here are excellent.

The other high point of the day was a trip to Lucerne's farmers market, which operates on Saturdays and Tuesday's along the banks of the river and near the bridges. Vendors from all over the region come in to sell fruits, vegetables, preserves, cheeses, and all matter of local edibles to city-dwellers.



I began chatting with a cheese vendor, who had some beautiful, earthy looking stuff in his booth. I don't speak any German and he didn't speak any English, but a nice woman passing by stepped in to translate. We soon had a good three way conversation going about the merits of various cheeses, as he fed me excellent slices of various things. I bought a piece of delicious raclette-cheese with green peppercorns. He also gave me something interesting: an entire dried pear, which had, during the dehydration process, turned into a tiny and concentrated burst of pear flavor. I've never seen these suckers in the USA. (He also told me, proudly, that they "make ya regular".)

Some other sights around town:


A Russian-esque building which pleased me.


An overcast day, but still soulfully beautiful.


The super-modern convention center over the lake.


Another shot of the shore and the lake hotels.


Raclette setup before the fun begins.

Most importantly, Colette decided to make me raclette today. Colette is known for her raclette making prowess, and I was very happy that she'd make raclette for me in a decidedly non-raclette friendly time of the year. Traditional, old school raclette is prepared with potatoes, pickles, onions, and nothing else, no foolin' - but Colette likes to mix it up a bit. We had our raclette with mushrooms, pineapple, chicken, shrimp, pickles, garlic, onions, red pepper, and even some Chinese funghi we'd started soaking the day before - and that's without getting into the sauces and condiments. (I am considering wedding a bottle of Heinz Curry Sauce).


Our friend the raclette grill.


Grilling meats and vegetables on top of the grill. Cheese is put in trays and melted below. Clever, no?


Melty cheese. Oh baby.

It was absolutely delicious, and a lot of fun: I'm surprised raclette hasn't taken off in the USA like fondue. Fondue is delicious, but one is required to keep on stirring and stirring away while eating it - whereas raclette allows you to go at your own place, allowing for conversation, wine re-filling, and thoughtful digestion. It's also such an incredibly versatile method of cooking: you melt the cheese below the tabletop grill, but the grill lends itself to all manner of uses. By the end of the meal, we had done Asian-style raclette: we grilled all sorts of stuff with some soy sauce, which was delicious. (Grilled pineapple is always a winner).