From Lahore to London, Houston to Hyderabad, or Santiago to Cairo — one thing seen commonly at breakfast tables is the Swiss muesli. Even most airlines have it on their breakfast menus describing it rather poetically while serving it to weary travellers. Thanks to its high nutritional value and the fact that it can be prepared in a jiffy add credence to its prime position on most breakfast tables.
While many buy it off the shelves at supermarkets, it can be made at home as most Swiss citizens do. It requires the soaking of oats, assorted nuts, seeds, and fruits, especially grated apples in yoghurt or milk along with sugar or honey and loads of cream the previous night. But like other parts of the globe, recipes vary too, from home to hotel, hotel to hotel. In winter, the mixture can be left outside but in summer the fridge can’t be ignored.
“Muesli is the best example of Swiss innovation in food. It makes creative use of the food available in households. We were served muesli every morning when we were kids. And I still enjoy good muesli every now and then for breakfast as it is a nutritious way to start the day,” explains Dr Ralf Heckner, Ambassador of Switzerland to India and Bhutan.
Interestingly, many may not know muesli was the invention of Swiss doctor Maximilian Oskar Bircher who created it to treat his patients suffering from various illnesses. According to Dr Eberhard Wolff from the Department of Anthropology and Cultural Studies at the University of Zurich who was quoted in the BBC Travel piece, ‘How Switzerland transformed breakfast?’, “It began around the 1900s. Bircher first conceived the idea while studying medicine, experimenting with the effects of raw food on the body. He used himself as the rat lab after falling ill with jaundice. The conclusion: his recovery was proof of concept for the health benefits of raw apple, nuts and oats, mixed with water, lemon juice and condensed milk, which is the original recipe.”
He soon opened his own clinic and began serving patients there, followed by several other health clinics. But he may not have imagined that families across Switzerland and later across the world would get addicted to muesli. Commonly known as Bircher Muesli (named after him) various tour companies also began advertising it. Soon, it became a global cereal — a favourite breakfast meal for many. Almost every cereal brand sells it now. It is also said that once muesli was a starter to every meal and then a pre-dinner snack for a long time but never a breakfast meal but for the energy and nutrition it gave, it had to become a breakfast special — the first meal of the day. “The whole mixture of the traditional Bircher Muesli contains a large number of vitamins, nutrients and proteins. Also, it can be made as per one’s dietary requirements. For instance, if adding sugar bothers you, go for honey instead, or make it more fruity,” shares a culinary team member from the Four Seasons Hotel in Geneva. A Swiss breakfast is indeed incomplete without it!