With a mountainous landscape perfect for decadent skiing holidays, vast lakes and unique climate, Switzerland is the perfect place for a mini-break. It’s also home to some hearty traditional cuisine.

Whether you’re visiting Switzerland to enjoy an activity holiday on the slopes or are plumping for a European city break, a trip is a great opportunity to indulge in some seriously indulgent feasting.

 

Fondue

Fondue in Switzerland may seem clichéd, but it is indelibly woven into the country’s fabric. For centuries, Swiss living in the mountains relied on fondue as a way to use bread and cheese during colder months. Today, it is a must-have for any local or visitor to the country from autumn to spring. Dunk rustic country bread into melted cheeses (opt for a moitie-moitie of gruyere and vacheron), infused with lashings of wine and garlic, bubbly over an open flame. Pair yours with white wine and chase it with schnapps or tea for an epic winter meal.

Leeks with potatoes and sausage (Papet Vaudois)

Papet Vaudois is best described as a mash of leeks and potatoes that are stewed for hours. The result is an earthy, onion-tinged mixture that makes the perfect root bed for fat sausage, unique to the canton of Vaud (saucisson Vaudois). With deep roots in the canton, Papet Vaudois is akin to the region’s emblematic dish, and its notorious crimson sausage, loosely stuffed and plump, is not to be missed.

Rosti, Valaisanne-style

Thinly grated potatoes, pan-fried until crisp and golden, rosti is one of Switzerland’s iconic national dishes. Though no one knows when the first rosti was cooked-up, farmers in the canton of Bern would traditionally eat it for breakfast. It is now found throughout the country and across mealtimes. For a brilliant winter rendition, indulge in a Rosti Valaisanne, from the canton of Valais. Served steaming in a ceramic dish, Rosti Valaisanne is a delightfully addictive mash-up of rosti topped with salty bacon, fried egg, and melted raclette cheese, served alongside tangy gherkins and pickled pearl onions.

Basel-style roasted flour soup

It was once said that a girl from Basel could not marry until she knew how to make roasted flour soup. Though there are countless ways to make the dish, at its most basic, it is simply flour, butter, onion and beef stock, topped with a reserved grating of Gruyere. Legend has it the soup was created when a distracted cook was chatting away, leaving flour cooking in a pot until accidentally browned. Rather than ditch the mishap, it was turned into a dish that has endured. The soup is a must-have at Basel Carnival, which is officially launched with a serving of it at 3am.

Raclette

Scents of wood-burning fires and pine waft through Switzerland’s roads in cooler months. Step into most hillside haunts and the fragrance of pungent melted raclette cheese will also greet you. Hailing from the canton of Valais, raclette is a local cheese customarily grilled slowly over a fire, with layer-by-melted-layer sliced off to blanket boiled potatoes, pickles and onions. Contemporary raclette machines make grilling commonplace in Swiss homes, where friends gather for hours, waiting for slices of raclette to melt, while drinking copious glasses of local Fendant wine.

Polenta and braised beef

The Italian-speaking canton of Ticino has been stirring polenta  – a cornmeal dish, cooked into porridge – for centuries. Traditionally, it was cooked slowly in a copper cauldron over a fire, until thick and hearty. Come wintertime, savoury braised beef, teeming with wine-induced flavours, is a staple pairing with polenta, in a perfect marriage of rustic tastes and culinary traditions.

Zurich-style ragout of veal and mushroom (Zurcher geschnetzeltes)

Zurich-style diced veal is an iconic national dish that makes a hearty, wintertime lunch. Made of sliced veal, calves’ kidneys and sweetbreads sautéed in a gravy of onions, butter, white wine, cream, and mushrooms, this old-school favourite hails from Switzerland’s most dynamic German-speaking city though has found its way, justifiably, onto menus around the country. The mixture of cream laced with wine over veal, Zurcher geschnetzeltes as it’s known in Swiss-German dialect, is a delight on the piste or off.

Tartiflette

Tartiflette was conceived near the French-Swiss border in the department of Haute-Savoie, home to the local Reblochon cheese. Though the cheese dates to the 16th century, tartiflette was fashioned only in the 1980s by the Reblochon trade union in an effort to help sagging sales. And it worked. Today, tartiflette is a staple dish at most ski resorts, particularly those in Swiss-Romande. This rustic plate is a starchy combination of thinly sliced potatoes, smoky bits of bacon, carmelised onions and oozy, nutty, creamy Reblocohon cheese (of course).

Bern-style lekerlis biscuits with hazelnuts

Leckerli have a long and treasured history in Switzerland, particularly at Christmas time. Though their ancestors, Lebkuchen, are German sweets, these spiced, gingerbread-like biscuits were given a tender hazelnut rendering in the Swiss capital of Bern centuries ago. Sticky, spicy, sweet, Leckerli are more than worthy of your Swiss culinary bucket-list, particularly when dunked in tea.

Vacherin Mont D’Or

Only in Switzerland does cheese have seasonality. And between September and April, when the mountains are snowcapped, Mont-d’Or Vacherin pops-up in cheese shops, as it has for over a century. This soft, pungent cow’s milk cheese is freshly made from the villages around the Jura region. Covered with white wine and garlic, then cooked in its round wooden packaging, digging into this gooey, creamy cheese, served warm over boiled potatoes, is a delightful winter ritual.

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In both TV crime dramas and real-life courtrooms, fingerprints are often the lynchpin connecting a criminal to a crime. Many studies have demonstrated that the loops, whorls, and arches on an individual’s “friction ridge skin” are unique enough to be admissible as evidence, but few have investigated whether they remain the same over time. Therefore, fingerprints have been used by law enforcement and forensics experts to successfully identify people for more than 100 years. Though fingerprints are assumed to be infallible personal identifiers, there has been little scientific research to prove this claim to be true. As such, there have been repeated challenges to the admissibility of fingerprint evidence in courts of law.

It turns out that fingerprints do evolve, but only slightly: A statistical analysis published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that fingerprints change over time, but not enough to impact forensic analyses.

The study followed 15,597 subjects, whose prints were taken at least five times over a minimum of 5 years. The results show that larger time intervals between printings reduced the odds of correctly matching a print to a finger in the database, but only by an operationally inconsequential amount. Further, the scenario in which an innocent defendant would be wrongfully convicted—where the machine finds a match even though there isn’t one—was even less likely, with a probability close to zero regardless of the time between printings. Overall, the best predictor of mistakes was the quality of the image. Poor images yielded more errors, leading the team to conclude that image quality plays a bigger role in explaining the variation than elapsed time.

“We wanted to answer the question that has plagued law enforcement and forensic science for decades: Is fingerprint pattern persistent over time?” said Anil Jain, University Distinguished Professor, computer science and engineering, at Michigan State University. “We have now determined, with multilevel statistical modeling, that fingerprint recognition accuracy remains stable over time.”

Jain, along with his former Ph.D. student Soweon Yoon, who is now with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, used fingerprint records of 15,597 subjects apprehended multiple times by the Michigan State Police over a time span varying from five to 12 years.

The results show that fingerprint recognition accuracy doesn’t change even as the time between two fingerprints being compared increases.

The paper by Yoon and Jain, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the largest and most thorough study of the persistence of Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems, or AFIS, accuracy.

Experts agree that Jain’s research addresses one of the most fundamental issues in fingerprint identification and is of great importance to law enforcement and forensic science:

• “This study is one of the fundamental pieces of research on a topic that has always been taken for granted. The permanence of fingerprints has not been systematically studied since the seminal work of Herschel was presented in Galton’s book: Finger Prints (1892, Macmillian & Co.). Although operational practice has shown that the papillary patterns on our hands and feet are extremely stable and subject to limited changes (apart from scars), the study presented in PNAS provides empirical and statistical evidence.” Professor Christophe Champod, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland.
• “This study is a monumental achievement and one that will benefit forensic science teams worldwide.” Capt. Greg Michaud, director of the Forensic Science Division, Michigan State Police.
• “Dr. Jain’s analytic quantification on fingerprint persistence of the results significantly support early studies on fingerprint persistence and yet further support legal requirements for peer review and publication.” Jim Loudermilk, senior level technologist at the FBI Science and Technology Branch.

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Samsung designs £20,000 kennel featuring paw operated snack dispenser and a hot-tub. Samsung’s futuristic kennel is created to celebrate Crufts 2015. The Dream Doghouse cost £20,000 to make and features two main rooms. Padded bedroom contains a tablet TV and tannoy to summon owners. Living room includes a dispenser so dogs can give themselves treats. Outside there’s a treadmill and hot-tub for athletic canines .

Samsung says 64 per cent of dog owners think their pets would benefit from more technology and gadgets, such as treadmills and tablets. With a kennel this fancy, dogs may deliberately misbehave in order to be in the doghouse. So, has unveiled a futuristic kennel with luxuries including an entertainment wall, paw operated snack dispenser, ‘woofing’ tannoy system and hot-tub.

The ‘Dream Doghouse’ was designed by a team of 12 architects and fabricators and took six weeks to make. It was commissioned to mark Samsung’s sponsorship of Crufts 2015, which is the world’s largest dog show.

The prototype kennel is divided into two areas – one for rest and relaxation and the other for dining. There is also an outside astro-turfed leisure area for some exercise. To work out the most desirable features for the kennel, Samsung surveyed 1,500 people.

It found 64 per cent of dog owners think their pets would benefit from more technology and gadgets, with a quarter admitting they would like their dog to have treadmill, and a similar number a TV or tablet. Almost one in five said that they would like their dog to have a hot-tub or spa while 22 per cent found the idea of a dog operated feeder the most appealing.

The back area of the Dream Doghouse features a padded sleeping area with ‘dog-proof’ leather buttons and luxurious bone pillows. A wall-mounted Samsung Galaxy Tab S allows dogs to watch TV from their bed and owners to contact them via an interactive video link.

Dogs can even summon the attention of their owner using a ‘push to woof’ call button. In the front kennel, dogs can stare out at a garden through a large polycarbonate window, or take in the ‘designer’ paw and dog print wallpaper, upon which frame portraits of Crufts winners hang.

A skylight doubles up as ceiling access for ‘athletic types’ and a dog operated snack dispenser means pampered pooches can help themselves to treats, instead of begging. Outside, there’s a treadmill to keep canines trim – and work off all the slef-given snacks – as well as a hot-tub for sprucing up after a muddy walk.

While the hi-tech kennel may just be a bit of fun, pets are becoming more high tech, with trackers and other gadgets becoming more common.  A quarter of owners surveyed said they have made a social media profile for their dog and half regularly post pet pictures online.

Around four in ten owners have left the TV on while they are out of the house to keep their dog company, while a quarter use the TV to block out scary noises such as fireworks. Some owners even go so far as to video call their dogs when they’re away, with 14 per cent admitting to having done this.

Perhaps people are so keen to splash the cash on doggie gadgets because 85 per cent of Britons consider their pets fully-fledged members of their family, according to the study. Over half say their animal has influenced where they live and what job they do and just over 40 per cent eat at the same time as their dog in the evening.

‘With the Samsung Dream Doghouse, we wanted to reflect the nation’s growing trend for using technology,’ said Andy Griffiths, President, Samsung Electronics UK and Ireland. ‘From dogs who have social media profiles to owners who use video calling to check on their pet while away, technology is fast becoming an integral part of everyday life…

‘The Samsung Dream Doghouse looks sleek and modern, featuring the kind of tech the discerning dog of the future will need.’

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