Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Egg Snow and how not to see Switzerland


2 days in Kandersteg wasn't enough! We've moved out of the chalet and up the street to the Hotel Gemmi (/Gammy/), a fairly inexpensive but nicely furnished backpackers hotel for two more nights. It has been raining more or less since that picture below was taken, so we're quite thankful to be indoors. We've taken to making nightly rounds of the campsites, and have met tremendous people. We spent Monday night with a group of Austrian scouts. I had gone looking for the recipe of a dessert that they brought to the international exchange. Our host Veit did a lovely job of translating it for us, but the translation produced a concept that we have no word for in English. Egg whites, beaten for 10 to 15 minutes until they are the consistency of ice cream. Their word is "eischnee" (/eye shnee/), which translated comes to "Egg Snow". New word? I'll take it.
Today we tried to get to a cheese factory for a tour, but a failure of train timing led us on a 6 hour goose chase. Pretty scenery, but we spent the whole day on the train. By that point the cheesery seemed much less interesting so we just packed it in early and attended a multi-country campfire and song night. Groups from the US, Holland and Denmark all shared campfire songs, chants and yells. Classic scout fun.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe we call it meringue! Though that is baked of course atop a pie. Sounds like Kendersteg was a hit-a good lead from from Mrs. Hooten! BTW-enjoy the rain-tis triple digit here! (Check your email-OK?)Love, Mom

Fidus Aelius said...

Agreed with the mother unit, the beaten egg whites sound like meringue. If I remember correctly, such beaten egg whites (mixed with sugar or summat) form an ingredient for the dutch pastries called Ableskivers.

PNT said...

That's just it! It's not meringue! Meringue is a specific concoction INVOLVING beaten eggs, but this is something different. Henceforth dubbed "egg snow"!