Swiss stocks and spinach salad

A couple of mornings ago, I was listening to Swiss radio with half of a quarter of one ear, distractedly, whilst trying to get Greta to eat a yoghurt for breakfast, and failing utterly to do so. She did, however, have a few pieces of dry muesli. I swear the child will drive me to distraction...

On the radio, they were interviewing somebody from the Office Federal pour l'approvisionnement economique du pays (Federal Office for National Economic Supply), about how Switzerland is going to manage in the case of a global pandemic- which will, of course, be affecting the food supply. He said that the Office publishes a brochure which lists all that you should have at home, and made a few jokes about having updated it recently, as food tastes had changed. For example, he said, they removed the "choucroute garnie" (sauerkraut with sausages and slab bacon) from the list.

As it sounded relatively useful, I dug up the website, and ordered a copy of the brochure.

The list, however, is available here. And a right giggle it is too, it being the old list, with sauerkraut (listed as Berner Platte, under 10: prepared meals). I looove that it includes one packet of fondue mixture! And that jam and chocolate are emergency rations.

Now I just need to get all of this together (as if), and then store it in the nuclear bomb shelter, like a good Swiss housewife.

Of course we have a bomb shelter! It's still the law here- whenever you build, there needs to be a fallout shelter. The fact that most of them are used as storage areas is irrelevant. They Are There In Case Of Emergency. And that makes all good little Swiss persons happy.

Rather like the annual test of the country-wide siren to warn everybody to get to the shelters now, the... erm... foreigners are invading. It's time to blow up the (mined) autoroutes and bridges! And for the men to take to the mountains with their guns and helmets so that they can fight a rearguard guerilla action. Presumably whilst we poor women stay in the valleys and either offer comfort to the poor misguided enemy, or emulate Judith and Holofernes.

Back to food...

For dinner tonight, having snacked on Italian salami and Manchego with Greta whilst she had supper (made up of said salami, Manchego, a couple of mouthfuls of cucumber, 3 spoonfuls of yoghurt and one of mashed strawberries, which only went in because I promised her it was the last one), Peter and I will be having a spinach salad.

We eat a lot of salads.

This one will include, besides the spinach, hardboiled eggs and walnuts (Greta discovered walnuts today, and decided that she likes them- I really need to manage to get her to eat cereal bars). Normally I'd also add some lardons, but I stopped buying bacon regularly at the beginning of the summer, and haven't needed to start again yet.