Page 124 of Happily Ever After

Wulfram stood in the foyer under the enormous chandelier that reflected fire in the polishedmarble floor. “It’s cool today.”

“For the desert,” Dieter replied.

“It doesn’t get truly cold, here.”

“Not like Switzerland.”

They both studied the floor.

Wulf asked, “Do you want a drink?”

“God, yes.”

Dieter followed Wulf back to a library in the rear of the house where they’d used to have a drink together at the end of long days.

One of Wulfram’s housekeepers followed them, carryinga tray.

Dieter looked back at the silent, inscrutable housekeeper. “Did you order food?”

Wulf glanced back and frowned. “No.”

The woman followed them into the library and placed the tray between them on a table.

Wulfram asked her in German, the language they always used together, “Rosamunde, what’s this?”

Rosamunde had been Wulfram’s housekeeper for many years and was now his Head of Staff.She had greeted Dieter at the door the very first time he’d visited Wulfram in Rolle, Switzerland, and she’d been Wulf’s father’s head housekeeper atSchloss Marienburgbefore Wulf stole her away to work for him.

The thin, wiry woman with iron-gray hair whisked the cloth away from the tray, revealing two bowls of creamy, pale yellow soup, each with toasted croutons and a sprig of fresh parsleyfloating in them.

Rosamunde announced,“Milchsuppe.”

Milk soup.

Dieter sat back in his chair. “I should have known this was a trap.”

A small crease appeared between Wulfram’s pale eyebrows, which was as close to scowling as he ever got. “This is unnecessary.”

She said, “You think you’re Swiss, Wulfram, instead of German. Eat themilchsuppewith your old, Swiss friend, Dieter Schwarz.”

Rosamundeflounced out of the library.

Milchsuppeis the most quintessential of Swiss dishes, perhaps even more so than fondue, raclette or muesli. It is a symbol of alpine culture, the founding of the Swiss Confederation, and comfort food.

In its simplest form,milchsuppeis nothing more than milk simmered with bread, though most cooks now add Sbrinz, a flavorful Parmesan-type cheese that makes it richand savory.

Like the country of Switzerland, the soup is a melding of the ingredients that were at hand in June, 1529, and a culinary symbol of Swiss history that is a blend of warfare that melted into diplomacy and reconciliation, and finally neutrality.

Two armies composed of tall, handsome, blond, Swiss warriors met on a battlefield on what is now known as theMilchsuppestein, or ‘the milksoup pasture.’Milchsuppesteinmarked the no-mans-land, the wartime front between northern states, called cantons in Switzerland, like Zürich that adhered to the new Protestant faith as led by a firebrand Martin Luther-like reformer, Ulrich Zwingli, and the southern states of the Old Swiss Confederacy like Zug that remained faithful to the Catholic Church and Rome. Diplomatic relations betweenthe two sides had failed, and the armies marched to meet each other on the battlefield, covered with plate and scale armor and armed with the traditional Swiss weapon of choice, pikes.

The diplomats continued their bickering, at odds with their faiths and deficient in their ability to compromise, but the armies themselves had fewer qualms about negotiations. The infantrymen were hungry aftertheir long march to the battlefield where the war was to be held, but neither army had sufficient provisions for a siege while the politicians flapped their gums. The army from Zürich had packed plenty of bread and salt, while those from Zug had brought milk from its rich dairy farms.

Thus, over a soup pot on the battlefield,milchsuppewas created, and it fed the hungry armies, who had morein common with wanting their supper than they differed. Peasants conscripted into the armies swapped maces and pikes for dagger-cut bread and warm soup, and they brokered their own peace.

“War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering,” Carl von Clausewitz said.

Soup is better.

In Switzerland,milchsuppeembodies what it means to be Swiss: to negotiate, to reconcile, and to lay downone’s arms and claim neutrality.