Swiss Timing Is Everything (Unless the Wind Disappears)

Can punctuality be learned? I travelled to Switzerland to find out. As a non-chronically late person who still manages to be a wee bit tardy sometimes, I thought I might glean insights into the mechanics of timekeeping here, where watch brands grace Geneva's grandest façades and the trains are so ridiculously efficient, I calculated the exact moment a Lausanne-bound train would pass behind a herd of clanging dairy cows based on the Château d’Œx-bound cars passing a few minutes before.

My explorations did raise one conundrum, however. Given that the Swiss wear their on-time pride on their sleeve like a Swatch, how does one explain the popularity of hot air ballooning, the planet's least predictable mode of travel? This thought came to me one afternoon when I was stalled with my basketmates high above a church’s hexahedral spire in the village Saanen, going nowhere fast. (I suppose you’re not late if you never arrive.)

I’d experienced other impressive engineering feats prior to my stranding above the spire, beginning with Switzerland’s vaunted railways. Climbing over the mountain directly outside of Lausanne seemed an impossible trajectory, a series of switchbacks that would challenge most sportscars. I assumed, given I get seasick on an escalator, I would experience that mouth-watering, stomach-churning queasiness of rapid and repeated reorientations. And yet, our Belle Époque carriage (imagine plushly-woven seats and an arched wooden ceiling) snaked over the hill and slithered into a tunnel without me, or more importantly, my inner ear, ever noticing.

Like hot air ballooning’s dependence on the whim of the wind, Swiss cheesemaking depends upon nature's mood for success. Each spring in the Pays-d’Enhaut, cows are led to alpine meadows at altitudes between 1,000 and 2,000 m (3280 and 6,561 ft) above sea level, where they forage upon fresh clover and native grasses. A bovine parade of flower-festooned cows signals their return to the parlor, providing milk that will produce L’Etivaz, a floral, hard cheese endemic to the area.

I witnessed the cheesemaking process one afternoon and swiftly discerned that, like so much of Swiss culture, timing is everything. To create L’Etivaz cheese, fresh evening and morning milk is combined in a copper cauldron over wood-fueled heat at exactly 32ºC (89.6ºF), stirred, and allowed to curdle. The cheesemaker employs a cheese harp to cut the cheese into smaller grains at precisely the right moment, separating curds from the whey and reheating to 57ºC (134.6ºF) and constantly stirring before removal from the flames. The cheesemaker then uses a cheesecloth to remove the curds, places them in a wheel, and carves his initials like Paul Klee completing a canvas. Miss your temperature setting, botch the curd and whey separation, or wait too long to remove curds from the fire and your cheese wheel careens off course.

Which brings me back to our wicker basket hovering above the steeple. Failure would ensue if this basket were filled with cheese curds instead of six passengers and a pilot. Waiting for a breeze to propel us toward our down valley landing site, though I soon learn exact targets are never assumed, I can’t help but wonder whether Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones, the pair who, in 1999, embarked from Château-d’Œx on the first successful circumnavigation by balloon of the earth, were also stymied by dead air just 25 minutes into their 19 days, 21 hours, and 47-minute flight.

Were it so, I must assume, though perhaps not exactly Swiss by nature, Piccard and Jones were well-prepared to go with the flow.