{"id":4277,"date":"2017-09-24T13:09:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-24T13:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=4277"},"modified":"2017-09-24T13:14:33","modified_gmt":"2017-09-24T13:14:33","slug":"cheese-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=4277","title":{"rendered":"Cheese Festival\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a big day here in Wengen. After the cows have come home from their summer pastures above the village, the serious business of dividing the cheese must take place. Here’s how it works.<\/p>\n

Those herds of cattle that we see up in the mountains in summer do not belong to a single farmer. Rather, groups of farmers club together to form a co-operative for the summer months. The return they get depends on the number of cows that each farmer contributes to the herd.<\/p>\n

Still with me? Ok here’s the detail. Each cow is notionally divided into eighths. The reason for this is that it allows fractions of a cow to be traded. If a farmer needs to raise some cash therefore he can sell shares in cows that he owns. In Wengen the price of one eighth of a cow is 150 Swiss Francs.<\/p>\n

Why would you wish to buy an eighth of a cow? The reason is simple – you’ll get a share of the cheese, and this will amount to 7 or 8 kilos of the finest cheese you’ll ever taste. 150 francs suddenly looks a bargain. This sharing of the cheese is the purpose of today’s festival. People beginning to arrive this morning. <\/p>\n

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And here is the cheese. The guy at the end of the table has a list of all the shareholders. <\/p>\n

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Your 150 francs does not mean you own your share of the cow forever. Once the cheese has been distributed all the shares revert to the farmer – you need to pay another CHF150 if you want more cheese next year.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, the whole thing is a great excuse for a huge knees-up, and this carries on all day. <\/p>\n

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There are hundreds of people here, certainly more than actually live in the village, and they all need to eat. This r\u00f6sti was delicious. <\/p>\n

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Here are those bell ringers that we see on new year’s eve.<\/p>\n

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It’s a big day here in Wengen. After the cows have come home from their summer pastures above the village, the serious business of dividing the cheese must take place. Here’s how it works. Those herds of cattle that we … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travelsandtribulations"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeeasley.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}