A Culinary and Cultural Interpretation of the Swiss Table

E is a Swiss friend I met while traveling in Mexico, and I promised her that one day I would definitely visit her hometown.

Several years later, I finally stood on the Alps, listening to the crisp cowbells carried to my ears by the wind, taking a deep breath of the cold, fresh air. This pristine haven of clear mountains and waters was the birthplace of milk chocolate, and the colorful farmhouses looked just like toy houses. I thought to myself: "Everyone here must surely be living a fairy-tale sweet life."

When I met up with E, who works as a social worker, and we ate chocolate fondue together, she dipped strawberries into the small ceramic pot of chocolate sauce while shaking her head: "Don't you know that in Switzerland, the number one enemy of people in my line of work is suicidal tendencies?"

Just as we were breaking the chocolate into pieces, heating it over a candle flame in a double boiler, and melting it into a heartwarming chocolate sauce, behind those walls of the dreamy toy houses covered in climbing vines and fresh flowers, there might be countless heartbroken people crying out in low voices, not wanting to see tomorrow's sun.

I was deeply envious of Switzerland's social welfare and wealthy progress. Everything here ran as precisely as a Rolex watch, and the worst social disaster I could imagine was perhaps just a tram being five minutes late, so I couldn't help but roll my eyes and instinctively curl my lip.

But what I actually swallowed down along with the chocolate-dipped banana slices was the thought: "Damn…… so blessed and still suicidal……… not appreciating the good fortune they have……"

E saw the speechless look on my face and actually responded: "We do have some programs where, after evaluation by doctors, clients are regularly sent to the Third World as international volunteers, which is why I spent some time in Mexico back then, to see if I could support the rescue of child labor in cocoa bean production."

Only then did it dawn on me: "So that's it. E went to Mexico back then to arrange that kind of program."

Although I was astonished that Switzerland's social resources were abundant enough to be used (wasted?) in such a way, I wasn't so arrogant as to snark at E, who had twenty years of social work experience, that the pain of those Swiss who shot their own heads off was all just imagined.

After all, for those who see suicide as liberation, the pain is absolutely real.

I asked curiously: "If there is a paradise on earth, Switzerland should rank first. So why on earth is your suicide rate so high?"

"Could it be that people are just too impatient with living?" The social welfare here was so good it made me indignant.

E replied: "The problem is precisely that social welfare is too good. People don't need to depend on each other, and they're not used to depending on each other. Everyone is shut inside a self-sufficient but emotionally lonely bubble, floating all over the place. We live in comfort and privilege, we don't understand the reality that life is fundamentally suffering, we feel we shouldn't have to suffer, and at the slightest grievance we get furious and complain that the whole world has let us down."

As E spoke, she grew reflective: "Switzerland is a uniquely blessed permanent neutral country. Generation after generation, we've worked hard to build a paradise on earth, removing all the hardships from life, but we've also lost the chance to temper our resilience. As a result, people have become weak and self-centered, and once they discover that life doesn't actually have a perfect happy ending, they fall into an abyss of despair."

"And then 'bang'!!!" E mimed a pistol with her fingers and pointed it at her own temple.

I was in an uproar inside…….. but said nothing, not knowing how to respond.

Because E's troubles, as they reached my ears, truly sounded too luxurious.

E, with her head of gray hair, looked at me, young and inexperienced, as if not knowing where to begin explaining. In the end she let out an elegant, soft sigh, her eyes returning to the gently bubbling chocolate pot before her: "My dear, there is no such thing as paradise in this world."

E and I both really like a Mexican film, "Like Water for Chocolate" (Como agua para chocolate), whose original title translates literally as "like water for chocolate."

I didn't quite understand the title, but E's Spanish was much better than mine. She said it was an old local saying used as a metaphor for intense emotions or anger. Because in the early days, when chocolate was still just a drink, Mexicans ground up precious cocoa beans, added various pungent spices, and mixed it with hot water.

For thousands of years, Mexican chocolate was always spicy and sharp, regarded by nobles as a drink with a divine quality during grand sacrificial ceremonies. Modern Europeans added sugar and milk, and after mass production through the modern commercial model, it became the sweet, smooth everyday snack it is today.

Switzerland, a nation built on the dairy industry, is especially famous far and wide for its milk chocolate.

E said: "When I was in Mexico, I once thought that perhaps we Swiss are too used to milk chocolate, and sometimes we should try chocolate that's both spicy and bitter instead."

After all, bitterness is the true nature of chocolate.

Just as real life was never merely a montage of those joyful, colorful shots from TV commercials.