Who has the best nuts in Switzerland?

November 8, 2010, 5 Comments

At this time of year there’s one smell that wafts around every Swiss town. And I’m not talking about fondue or damp leaves. It’s the heavenly aroma of roast chestnuts. Come the end of October and little wooden huts spring up all over the country, particularly in the city centres, for just one reason: to sell freshly roasted chestnuts. The stands also sell clementines, peanuts and fudge but such diversification is superfluous: it’s the chestnuts (or Marroni as they are known locally) that everyone wants. But who has the best nuts in the country?

Last week the Blick am Abend newspaper carried out a completely unscientific but incredibly useful test in five Swiss cities: Basel, Bern, Luzern, St Gallen & Zurich. The testers bought 500g of chestnuts from various Marroni stands in each city, and looked to see how many nuts they got for that weight, how many were edible, and how much they cost. And the winner was…

The Marroni stand at Zytglogge in Bern. Not only does it have a great position beside Bern’s wonderful medieval clock tower (the name in Bernese means ‘time bell’), but it has the best chestnuts in Switzerland. The half-kilo bag contained 47 nuts, of which only two were inedible, and cost 15 francs. The other cities’ stands might have been a couple of francs cheaper, but the quality didn’t compare. Worst were the three in Zurich (at Bahnhofplatz, Paradeplatz and Stadelhofen), with an average of 43 nuts – and 11 inedible ones (including some with worms. Yuk!).

Inter-city rivalry is as strong in Switzerland as in any other country; there’s nothing neutral about the way many folk from Zurich, Bern and Basel talk about each other. It most often appears at football matches but it seems that chestnut stands are not exempt. At least this time the Bernese have beaten their rivals; their footballers, the Young Boys, haven’t won for years but their nuts are second to none.

Of course, I have tested the winning chestnuts personally (the things I do for this blog), and can say that my 100g were perfectly delicious. I love roasted Marroni, but what I like most about eating them in Switzerland is the paper bags they come in. Each is divided into two compartments, one full of hot chestnuts, and one for the empty shells. It just wouldn’t do to have chestnut shells littering the Swiss streets. Excessive control freakery, or amazing attention to detail? Who knows but I love those empty-shell compartments for just being there. They are so Swiss.