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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Lucerne
Puff-pastry dome filled with veal, meatballs, mushrooms and raisins in a creamy sauce. It’s named for the city and canton of Lucerne and is also called Fritschipastete, after the local carnival figure.
Traditional dish from Lucerne, Lucerne
Also known as: Lozärner Chügelipastete, Lozärner Chügelipaschtetli, Fritschipastete
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Luzerner Chügelipastete — Lucerne, Switzerland
The Luzerner Chügelipastete, Lozärner Chügelipastete in the local dialect, is Lucerne’s celebratory dish. The name comes from Chügeli, meaning “little balls,” the shape of most of the filling’s ingredients. It is also called Fritschipastete, referring to Fritschi, the figure that represents the city’s carnival and the guild associated with it.
The earliest mentions of the dish date to the 18th century, and since then the recipe has changed several times in form and composition. The base has remained: a puff-pastry shell, the Pastetenhaus, filled with a ragout of meat, mushrooms and raisins.
For the classic version, veal is cut into cubes and a fine mixture of pork and veal is made into small balls and cooked in broth. In central Switzerland these meatballs are sold ready-made. Before serving, the meat, mushrooms and meatballs are combined in a creamy white sauce, sometimes with white wine or apple juice, and with marinated raisins. The puff-pastry dome, decorated on top, receives the filling.
Making the pastry shell is laborious, so the Chügelipastete is reserved for special occasions and carnival days. In the city’s traditional restaurants it also appears year-round, sometimes in individual or vegetarian versions.
Lucerne , Lucerne
Festive dish named for the city, also associated with Lucerne’s carnival.
Puff pastry, veal cubes, fine pork-and-veal meatballs, mushrooms, raisins, onion, cream and broth; sometimes white wine or apple juice and veal offal.
The dome is opened at the table and the filling is served on the plate together with pieces of the pastry. It is accompanied by rice, peas and carrots, pasta or french fries.
Festive dish and Lucerne carnival specialty; also served in traditional restaurants year-round.
Your questions
Chügeli means “little balls” in the Lucerne dialect, the shape of most of the filling’s ingredients.
It’s another name for the Luzerner Chügelipastete, linked to Fritschi, the figure symbolizing Lucerne’s carnival.
Generally rice, peas and carrots; pasta or french fries also appear.
Flavors of Switzerland
The solid chocolate bar that made Switzerland a world reference from the 19th century onward, with mechanized production by Cailler, Daniel Peter’s milk chocolate in Vevey, and Rodolphe Lindt’s conching in Bern.
Melted cheese with white wine in a caquelon, kept warm over a burner, into which each person dips bread cubes on a long fork. Promoted as a national dish from the 1930s onward, it is served across Switzerland in the cold months.
Hard honey biscuit with almonds, hazelnuts, candied orange and lemon peel and kirsch, covered by a thin layer of sugar. Mentioned in Basel at least since 1711, it is the city’s most closely associated sweet specialty.
Large platter with several cooked and smoked meats and sausages, served over sauerkraut and green beans, with potatoes. It is the festive dish of Bernese cuisine, traditionally linked to the victory at Neuenegg in 1798.
Grated potato patty fried in butter until a golden crust forms on both sides. It was the breakfast of peasants in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, including the canton of Bern, and became a symbol of German-speaking Switzerland, even lending its name to the Röstigraben.
Dry, crunchy meringues served with Gruyère crème double, a thick cream with at least 45% fat. The quintessential dessert of the Bénichon feast, it is one of the symbols of the Gruyère region in the canton of Fribourg.
Chocolate cauldron bearing the coat of arms of Geneva, filled with marzipan vegetables and sweets, which is broken at the end of the Escalade celebration in December. It recalls the legend of Mère Royaume and the defense of the city on the night of December 11–12, 1602.
Shortcrust pastry tart, closed on top, filled with chopped walnuts coated in caramel and cream. It is the best-known sweet specialty of Graubünden, linked to pastry chefs who emigrated from the Engadine to work elsewhere in Europe.
Chard leaf rolls filled with spätzli-like dough and Bündnerfleisch (air-dried beef) or local salami, cooked in broth and milk and gratinated with cheese. Emblematic dish of Graubünden, originating in the Surselva, with as many recipes as there are families.
Dense cake made from day-old bread soaked in milk, with cocoa, amaretti, raisins, pine nuts and often a splash of grappa. Born from a desire not to waste bread, it is considered the quintessential Ticino sweet and every family has its own recipe.
Half a wheel of cheese held close to the fire, with the melted part scraped onto the plate and served with boiled potatoes in their skins, pickled cornichons and pearl onions. It originated in Valais and was presented as a Valais national dish in 1909.
Distilled from wormwood, anise, and fennel, green or colorless, served diluted with cold water and turning cloudy when mixed. Production began in the Val-de-Travers, in the canton of Neuchâtel, at the end of the 18th century, and it was banned in Switzerland from 1910 to 2005.
Rustic purée of leek and potato cooked in water and white wine, served with saucisse aux choux, a smoked pork-and-cabbage sausage. It is the best-known culinary specialty of the canton of Vaud and is part of its intangible heritage.
Layered cake of almond meringue discs and a sponge soaked in kirsch syrup, with buttercream, covered with almonds and powdered sugar in a diamond pattern. Created in Zug by pastry chef Heinrich Höhn, who advertised it in 1915.
A mixture of soaked rolled oats, grated apple, walnuts or almonds, lemon and milk, created around 1900 by physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner for patients at his clinic in Zurich. It gave rise to the muesli eaten worldwide.
Thin strips of veal sautéed and served in a cream, white wine and mushroom sauce. It’s the dish Zurich residents name first when talking about the city’s cuisine, almost always accompanied by rösti.
