Cheese fondue, raclette, rvsti topped with cheese, croute au fromage; when I first came to Switzerland nearly ten years ago, these cheese-based dishes were the only thing you were ever likely to be offered as a vegetarian. It was great to realise that I wasn't going to starve!
And at a first glance, some of Switzerland's national dishes do seem like a veggie paradise. But after a while, the heaviness and richness of a diet of pure saturated fat start to take its toll, and you realise that you can't live on variations of cheese, potatoes and bread for the rest of your life.
Fortunately, the family I was living with didn't subject me to these dishes too often. And even though they were committed carnivores, I couldn't fault them on their effort to provide me with what they considered a healthy vegetarian regime: pizza with plenty of cheese on top, pasta sprinkled with a generous serving of cheese and homemade ratatouille with a liberal addition of cheese.
Breakfast and dinner was always a variety of Swiss cheeses served with great big hunks of bread and dollops of butter - testimony to the fact that we were living in the Swiss Alps. Fortunately, I hadn't yet toyed with the idea of turning vegan!
When I moved from mountain to city life in Geneva five years later, I met with a different problem. Not much cheese in sight, but boy did those city slickers certainly enjoy their meat.
During my first week in my new job, I was invited out to a business dinner with some of the company's managers and fellow colleagues. As used as I was to being able to go to most places in the UK and find at least one vegetarian meal on the menu, my stomach sunk as we approached the restaurant: outside was a life-sized smiling plastic cow with a sign swinging above her head proclaiming, "La Boucherie" (The Butcher).
Group spirits were buoyant as the waiter went round the table and took the almost majority order of 'steak Tartar. . marinated raw beef served with toast. Unable to turn tail, I had to sit and squirm until the waiter got to me. Apologetically, I murmured, "I don't eat meat," and the whole table fell silent. Disgusted, the waiter snorted, "Well why have you come to a restaurant which only serves meat then?" I felt chastised both for disgracing their premises and for being a vegetarian.
My first Christmas in Switzerland also posed more problems than expected. As we were celebrating back in the Swiss Alps I assumed that we'd be eating something cheese-based: a cheese fondue or raclette. I was right about the fondue but wrong about the cheese.
A Chinese Fondue, which initially sounded promising, was on the festive menu, but it wasn't until someone explained to me what it was - thin slices of raw meat cooked in a communal pot of mushroom bouillon - that I realised once again I was to be ostracised from yet another social gathering.
Nevertheless, as I sat on my own at the end of table eating my bowl of risotto (fortunately, this was served as a side-dish with the Chinese Fondue), I wasn't completely forgotten. Someone kindly (but ignorantly) offered me a bowl of the bouillon that the meat had been cooked in.
Since those days, however, vegetarianism has become less of an eccentricity in Switzerland and I've become more assertive about my choice to be a vegetarian.
So it was a bit of a shock to find out that my Swiss boyfriend (and now husband) is a voracious meat-eater. Only sheep and lambs are safe from him - horse, kangaroo, ostrich (all big hits in Switzerland following the "mad cow disease" outbreak), cow and pig are his particular favourites.
In the first throes of love, I even used to cook his meat for him, but always used complicated manoeuvres with kitchen utensils to ensure that I never had to touch the slice of dead animal, whether raw or cooked.
With the arrival of our first child, however, things changed drastically in our household; I stopped buying or cooking any form of meat. My husband now happily satisfies his meat cravings whenever we eat out at a restaurant or else buys and cooks his own on the barbecue in the summer months. Christmas is celebrated at my house with plenty to tempt the veggie palate and all guests know that meat won't be served (with rare exceptions).
As for my daughter Olivia, I was determined that she would be brought up as a vegetarian. As a compromise to my husband, however, I agreed to give her fish for his own peace of mind. The fact that I've been an ovo-lacto vegetarian for over twenty-five years and am very rarely ill obviously wasn't good enough proof for him that vegetarianism is a sound nutritional regime.
Surprisingly, the family never once raised the subject of vegetarianism while I was still breastfeeding Olivia. But as soon as her first teeth appeared and she started eating solids, my mother-on-law bluntly announced that I could start giving her meat. It was then that I dropped the bombshell, which was actually accepted better than anticipated. My mother-in-law is a firm believer that men need meat so maybe the fact the Olivia is a girl left her feeling less concerned by my choice.
Olivia's Godfather and his wife were a little more difficult. When the subject arose, as I knew it one day would, they were quite concerned that our little girl wouldn't be getting her ration of sausages and beefburgers which their two kids regularly enjoy. In fact, they were so concerned that Olivia's Godfather announced that they would give her meat whenever she visited their house. But that's another story!
Despite the Swiss's love affair with meat, vegetarianism is certainly becoming more acceptable in Switzerland, and vegetarian food choices are also becoming more widely available. Most restaurants offer at least one vegetarian dish, even if it is only pasta with tomato sauce. Tofu, quorn and tempeh products can easily be found in health food stores and the two largest supermarket chains have also started to produce their own veggie products.
Nevertheless, vegetarianism has still got a long way to go here. While walking past a local health food store one day, I did a double-take at one of the advertisements in their window: "Our organic meat is so good, even vegetarians get weak at the sight of it," it proclaimed.
Now that I'm considering becoming vegan, I can already see what a huge battle I'm going to have on my hands. Vegetarianism is still not really understood in Switzerland, and as for veganism - I don't think the Swiss even know what it is!
--Melanie Bucher turned vegetarian at the age of four after being horrified to learn where meat comes from. She's originally from England but now lives in Switzerland, looking after her meat-loving husband and boisterous vegetarian daughter. As well as being a mother, she also works as a Business English lecturer and part-time writer.
