What to Bring Back from Switzerland?
To me, Switzerland is a country of cheese and chocolate - those two always take up most of the room in my suitcase on the way home. But Swiss cuisine has less obvious finds to offer too: pastries filled with dried pears, or cured meats from the Italian-speaking south of the country. And you'll find nearly all of it in an ordinary supermarket, with no hunting around specialty shops required.
So which food souvenirs from Switzerland do I recommend most?
Swiss Cheese Tasting Selection
If I could bring only one thing back from Switzerland, it would be cheese. A tasting selection is a great way to get started: mine had Tête de Moine, Emmentaler, Bergmutschli, Gruyère, Appenzeller and Cambozola in it. Six Swiss cheeses in one pack, so you'll quickly work out which one to buy a whole wedge of next time. For me the winner was the pungent Tête de Moine from the Bellelay abbey in the Jura, a cheese you shave into thin rosettes with a special tool called a girolle.
Price for a 250 g cheese tasting selection: 11.50 CHF (11.20 EUR)
Buure Weichkäsli Soft Ripened Cheese
Switzerland is about far more than hard mountain cheeses. Buure Weichkäsli means roughly "little farmhouse cheese" in Swiss German, and it's a small round of soft ripened cheese with a mild, creamy taste. The 35 g pack makes it a perfect in-flight snack - nothing to cut, nothing leaking into your backpack.
Price for a 35 g pack of Buure Weichkäsli: 1.15 CHF (1.20 EUR)
Appenzeller Cheese
Appenzeller gets washed regularly with a herbal brine as it matures, and the makers have kept the recipe a closely guarded secret for centuries. That gives this hard cheese from the Appenzell region in the northeast of the country a spiced, mildly pungent flavor that stands out even on a plain slice of bread. This one came from a COOP supermarket - good cheese is sold absolutely everywhere here.
Price for a 200 g pack of Appenzeller: 4.90 CHF (4.80 EUR)
Emmentaler Cheese
Plenty of dairies imitate Emmentaler, but the original comes from the Emme valley in the canton of Bern. Those trademark big holes are blown by bacteria that release carbon dioxide as the cheese matures. Copies are made everywhere from France to America these days, yet real Emmentaler tastes gently nutty and leaves the rubbery blocks sold back home standing.
Price for a 220 g pack of Emmentaler: 4 CHF (4 EUR)
Gruyère Cheese
Gruyère takes its name from the town of Gruyères in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Young, it tastes creamy and nutty; with age the flavor grows stronger and crunchy crystals start to appear in it. It's the backbone of a proper Swiss fondue, where it's often paired with Emmentaler - and grated, it lifts even a plain potato bake.
Price for a 314 g pack of Gruyère: 5.95 CHF (6 EUR)
Birnweggen Pear Pastries
Birnweggen are pastries filled with a thick paste of dried pears, close to a fruit butter in texture. Nuts, figs or raisins go into the filling, along with spices such as cinnamon and cloves, and sometimes a splash of fruit brandy. The larger birnbrot pear bread uses the same filling and gets sliced to go with coffee or tea. I love pear butter on the big flat yeast-dough cakes we bake back home, so this one was a one-second decision.
Price for a pack of three birnweggen: 3.20 CHF (3.20 EUR)
Cured Meats from the Canton of Ticino
Piatto ticinese is a selection of cured meats from the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino: Milano salami, dry-cured ham and dried bacon. The south of Switzerland sits close to Italian cooking in language and in flavor alike, and you can taste it in those thin, punchy slices. With an evening glass of wine and a piece of crusty bread you need nothing else.
Price for a 150 g pack of piatto ticinese: 4.99 CHF (4.80 EUR)
Swiss Chocolate
I simply don't head home without a few bars of Swiss chocolate. Milk chocolate was born right here: Daniel Peter invented it in the 1870s by mixing cocoa with the powdered milk of his countryman Henri Nestlé, and a few years later Rodolphe Lindt's conching machine gave it that velvety texture. Alongside the big names like Toblerone, Lindt and Frey, Switzerland has plenty of smaller chocolatiers too - and with them a box of pralines can easily set you back 40 EUR.
Price for a bar of Swiss chocolate: from 2 CHF (2 EUR)
Which treat do you bring back from Switzerland?
2 Comments
Many of these items are not allowed through US Customs
Thank you for your comment!
You’re absolutely right – many food items, including some listed here, may not be allowed through US Customs. These tips are intended as suggestions for travelers within the EU, where regulations are generally more flexible. Being based in the EU myself (Czech Republic), the focus is on what’s allowed across EU borders. However, since rules around food imports can be complex and vary by country, I always recommend checking the specific regulations of your destination before traveling with any food products.
Wishing you safe travels and wonderful food experiences wherever you go!