I don’t mean to sound so cheesy, but what would a year in Switzerland be without a nod to its claim to fame? Fromage, Fromaggio, Käse… CHEESE! Hard cheese, soft cheese, cottage cheese, cheese made in mountain chalets, cheese made in valley factories, cheese shaved into rosettes, cheese boxed in red pine, fondue cheese melted in wine, hot raclette  cheese dribbled over potatoes—it turns out that there's much more to Swiss cheese than making holes!
Every city in Switzerland has its own pasteurizing and aging process that can be seen (and smelled) in every Saturday morning market. Though most varieties can be purchased at the major grocery stores, there is nothing like buying it from the farmer himself. Though he doesn’t quite wear the traditional Swiss yodeling costume, his worn wool shirt and dirty overalls make him, in my view, a mountain man of great expertise. He shaves me a sample of his Emmentaler off of the 200-pound cheese wheel, holds it under my nose and offers it to me to eat. And I tell you, after just one creamy, spicy bite, my dorm-room “Swiss” cheese sandwiches have been ruined for me forever.
No one knows exactly when or where cheese was invented - although it can be said for certain that it was not in Switzerland. One story has it that a merchant traveling through the desert 5,000 years ago made the discovery by accident when the milk he was transporting in a sheep’s stomach bag reacted with the natural rennet in the stomach lining and was churned into cheese by constant jogging.
However, first-century Roman historian Pliny the Elder was the first to record the "cheese of the Helvetians," one of the tribes living in Switzerland at the time. This soft cottage cheese, really more similar to chunky sour milk, was the only form of cheese until the 15th century. Because this form of cheese did not keep, Alpine monks developed a harder cheese that could be stored through the winter.
In one famous story, the monks of the Great St. Bernard mountain pass fed two tons of cheese to Napoleon and his 40,000 troops. They did not receive a dime for it until 1984 when French president François Mitterrand paid them back.
Fall is an important time in the Fribourg cheese making season. The cheese of this region is Le Gruyère, arguably (well it really depends who is arguing) the richest, creamiest, most celebrated cheese in Switzerland. At the beginning of the summer, the farmers herd their cows through the village, out of the valley, and high up in the mountains to graze. Once they have grazed the highest meadow they come down again the same way in September and October. At certain times of the day, you can climb the hill out of the city and hear the echoes of cow bells ringing from the mountains.
I had the pleasure of eating fondue moité-moité last night in the coziest restaurant in town. This type of fondue is a mixture of Le Gruyère and Vachèrin cheeses and is exclusive to the Fribourg region. When the waiter asked me what I wanted to drink, at first I said water. He looked at me and said very seriously that I absolutely cannot drink water with fondue. After a bowl of hot potatoes, a warm baguette and a steamy pot of bubbling cheese in my stomach, I knew why. The Swiss take matters of cheese and digestion very seriously.
To be fair, there is a lot more to Swiss culture than cheese. I think my Swiss friends would roll their eyes at me if they read this drippy ode to their oh-so common “Heidi,” the cow-milking mountain girl stereotype. But who can blame me? Coming from the land of Cheez-Whiz, Cheese Fries and Cheetos, I can’t help but marvel at the delicious novelty of truly 100 percent real cheese.