I stare down at the bowl of cheese and try not to wince. Now is not the time to show emotion. I have come too far, too quickly, and any display of weakness is not happening. Instead, I take a deep breath, which is a poor choice of bravado. The smell of the cheese, the name of which I can’t even begin to pronounce, invades my nostrils and attacks. I want to cough, but somehow manage to keep my composure.
I turn away from the cheese and look around the square table. There are three other competitors, and while I haven’t faced any of them before, my trainer told me all about them. The Baroness Sabrina von Alpenhoff, sat to my immediate left. She is reportedly the secret daughter of the most powerful cheese maker in all of Switzerland. Rejected by her father, she came up in the cheese underworld, experimenting with tricky combinations of cultures and rennet at high altitude.
Her cheeses, which she never enters into competition, are the stuff of legends. Turophiles from every corner of the planet search for Sabrina’s hidden cheese cave, rumored to be near the top of Jungfrau, to beg for a taste. Eventually she grew bored with making cheese and sought fresh challenge by joining the Battalion.
I don’t know how she earned the title Baroness, but it fits. I look and try to gain eye contact, but she is looking down at her bowl. Her dark black bangs hang down past her face, coming dangerously close to the boiling cheese below.
To my right is Lucas Fabron, the defending Battalion champion. He is part French, part Algerian and known for his impeccable sense of style. He is wearing a tailored three-piece suit, and I can’t help but notice his cufflinks, which appear to be diamond-studded tongues. He is also wearing sunglasses, a risky move that reeked of over confidence. Wearing glasses is not against the rules, but if they became dislodged from his head and fell into the cheese, he will be disqualified. It wasn’t likely to happen, but depending on how long his head is bent down, it is possible. My trainer prohibits glasses for that precise reason.
Directly across from me is the wild card in this competition. My trainer knew little about him. Like me, he is from the United States, but that is where any similarities end. He’s Gary from Green Bay and sports a well-worn Brett Favre Packers jersey. Unlike the rest of us, Gary has never competed on the European circuit. He is the international winner, vanquishing all comers in the basement of a French brassiere in Brooklyn. As I look across the table, the enormous man gives me a wink. I do not return the gesture.
Instead, my attention drifts back to the bowl in front of me. I once again peer down into the viscous cheese. It is so hot that it’s slightly reflective. I catch a glimpse myself in the fondue and think back to when this all began.
I was mid-lick, enjoying a hazelnut chocolate gelato outside of Zurich’s main train station, when he interrupted me. It was the first time someone in Switzerland acknowledged my existence, other than the conductors on the trains. He said something to me in German and when I didn’t respond, he tapped me on the shoulder. I looked down to find an old man dressed in a red and white tracksuit I stood a full foot taller than him.
“Pardon me,” he shouted, as if his words might lose their way as they fluttered up to my ears. His English was perfect, with just the hint of an accent. “I couldn’t help but notice your tongue. Do you mind if I have another look?”
It was a peculiar request to be sure, but I was so happy that someone was speaking to me, I instinctively stuck out my tongue.
The old man put on a pair of spectacles that were hanging around his neck and peered up at me. His head moved from side to side to make sure his eyes were capturing every angle of my tongue. After a few seconds, he nodded, and I returned my tongue to my mouth.
“You have a strange marbling on the top of your tongue. It’s like a fingerprint without the ridges. Has anyone ever mentioned that to you before?”
I laughed nervously. I knew my tongue was a bit different, but no one had ever said anything to me about it.
“I have never heard that before,” I replied after taking another lick from my rapidly deteriorating ice cream cone. “But my tongue was involved in a tragic accident many years ago. I really don’t like to talk about it.”
The man motioned for me to lean down, and I complied.
“Please tell me the story,” he whispered while looking around nervously. “But not here. There could be spies around. Instead I would love for you to dine with me tonight. Can you come to Café Odeon at 7:30 this evening? Dinner will be my treat.”
Normally I wouldn’t dine with a complete stranger, but the spy talk was intriguing. I accepted his offer and by the time I finished another lick from my ice cream cone, he had disappeared.
I arrived at Café Odeon precisely at 7:30, but I was still late. The old man was sitting at a booth on the far side of the restaurant. As I walked towards him, I heard a cacophony of languages being spoken around me. There was a French couple having a heated discussion sitting at the large bar, which was the definite focal point of the restaurant. I also noticed a British family feasting on what appeared to be identical hamburgers. They even took their bites in sync.
When I finally made it to the table, the old man stood up and introduced himself.
“My name is Stefan,” he shouted while shaking my hand. A mock turtleneck cashmere sweater and beige slacks had replaced the tracksuit he wore earlier. It was an odd choice for July, but it suited him surprisingly well.
After I sat down, we engaged in some harmless small talk, mostly centered on how I arrived in Switzerland. I was between jobs and my girlfriend of three years recently decided to seek other opportunities. With my newfound freedom, I was travelling through Europe. I started in Spain, before taking a train through Italy to Zurich. In a couple of days, I would get back on a train to Paris and fly back home.
“If all goes well tonight,” Stefan said leaning across the table closer to me. “And I have every reason to believe that tonight will go well. You will not board that train to Paris.”
“Oh really,” I said flippantly while putting down my menu. “And why is that?”
“I will tell you why,” he replied. “But first, tell me about what happened to your tongue.”
“Oh that,” I said as my nervous laugh returned. “It’s kind of tragic story. Also quite embarrassing.”
“I understand,” Stefan said, “I promise I won’t laugh.”
“Well, it’s not really that complicated of a story, although at the time it was very traumatic. You see, when I was 12-years-old, I had braces on my teeth. One night, I was eating pizza for dinner and despite a stern warning from my mom about how hot the pizza was, I decided to take a bite.”
I stopped for a second, not to be dramatic, but to take a sip of water.
“The pizza was indeed scalding hot,” I continued. “And a piece of the cheese on top of the pizza broke free and landed directly on my tongue. Unfortunately, as I tried to open my mouth and spit it out, my braces locked together. The cheese was stuck, melding itself to my tongue.”
I expected Stefan to wince at the story, but instead, his eyes started palpitating with excitement.
“I tried to scream, but I couldn’t since my teeth were locked into place. I put on quite a show for my mother trying to express the pain I was in, but she just thought I was being funny. Finally, tears started falling down my face and my mom leaped into action, prying open my mouth. By that time, it was too late. The cheese had burned my tongue for nearly a minute. I probably should have been treated for burns, but instead I just sucked on ice until I went to bed that night.”
“This is wonderful!” Stefan exclaimed before realizing that he shouldn’t be celebrating my past pain. “I mean this was certainly terrible for you, but it is perfect in a way. Your tongue was permanently altered by burning cheese. It couldn’t get better than that.”
“I’m sorry, but this not wonderful,” I replied curtly. I will tolerate a certain level of strangeness, but this had crossed the border into being rude.
I stood up to leave, but Stefan motioned for me to stay seated.
“Please allow me to explain. At the time what happened to your tongue was a tragedy, but now it may be a gift.”
“A gift?”
“Yes, a gift.”
“How so?” I asked while leaning across the table. Stefan leaned in as well.
“Have you ever heard of the Battalion of Iron Tongues?” he whispered.
“The battalion of what?”
“The Battalion of Iron Tongues,” Stefan whispered again. “Legend has it that years ago competing armies, apparently in Switzerland before it became the confederation it is today, decided that it was stupid to try to kill each other over territory and other things. Instead, they invented another way to settle their differences. This other way is the ancient rite of tongue tolerance. Specifically, tongue tolerance to heat. Even more precisely, tongue tolerance to the boiling heat of different varieties of melted cheese or fondue if you will.”
“Say what?”
“A group of people put their tongues in pots of boiling cheese and whomever can keep their tongue in the cheese the longest is declared the winner.”
“Interesting,” was the word that came out of my mouth. I didn’t say it very enthusiastically, but that didn’t seem to bother Stefan.
“I myself tried to compete in the Battalion but was terrible at it. Instead, I decided to train other competitors. Over the past 40 years, I’ve coached four men and three women who have made it to the final bowl, but I’ve never produced a champion.”
“That’s too bad,” I replied while looking for our waiter. I had checked the prices on the menu and decided that if I was going to have to listen to the old man babble, I should at least get a free meal out of it.
“The last time I trained someone who made it to the finals was a decade ago,” Stefan continued. “I had all but given up hope and then I saw it. I saw your magnificent tongue. I could tell by the reflection of the sun, even with the ice cream, that your tongue was different. It had a certain unnatural sheen. And now that I know why, this was meant to be.”
Before I could respond, the waiter finally stopped by and I order a hamburger with fries. Stefan ordered a salad, beef tartare, and a club sandwich. As soon as he finished ordering, Stefan tried to speak again, but I interrupted him.
“So let me get this straight. You think I have a special tongue and you want me to compete in some sort of competition where I stick my tongue in a boiling pot of cheese for as long as possible. Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Please don’t be offended, but other than the spirit of competition, why would I do this?”
“Because if you win,” Stefan said, once again leaning across the table. “If you win the final competition, you receive 26 million Swiss Francs.”
After a millisecond of reflection, I agreed to let Stefan train me for the Battalion. Rather than depart for Paris, I spent the next month crashing at his apartment. I spent most of my time in the kitchen, preparing for the battles to come. Stefan tested my tolerance to heat first, convinced that I would more than hold my own, and he was right.
He started me out with boiling water before moving on to broths, bisques, purées, potages, and eventually cheese itself. Despite registering temperatures of over 50 degrees Celsius, I could hold my tongue in each for at least 20 seconds. That amount of time, Stefan assured me, would win most competitions.
Unfortunately, heat was not the only challenge I had to face. Much more difficult was the smell of the various cheeses. When I tried my first bowl of appenzeller, my tongue felt like it was in a nice warm bath while my nose pushed back like I had been punched in the face.
“There is no quick cure for a sensitive nose,” Stefan announced. “There is only one thing that will work and that is complete immersion. If everything around you smells bad, nothing smells bad.”
I nodded along as he spoke, not realizing the consequences of what he was proposing. By the next day, the entire apartment was full of smelly cheese. Stefan also forbid me from bathing for the next two weeks. He walked around the apartment with a clothes pin securely fastened to his nose, while I lounged around enveloped by the stench. I worried the neighbors might complain, but Stefan didn’t seem concerned at all. It was a horrific existence, but after about 10 days, I stopped noticing the smell. Stefan gradually escalated the pungency of the cheese and even threw in some rotten eggs as well. After a month, nothing could bother my nostrils.
A mere six weeks after my training begin, we entered our first competition. The cheese hall was hidden underneath the Abbey Library in St. Galen. Myself and 11 other competitors sat around a long table as the cheese heated up in a gigantic cauldron. Glasses of wine were placed in the middle of the table. Once the cheese reached the correct temperature, plus three extra degrees to account for cooling while it was poured, the bowls in front of us were filled and after some words were said in Swiss German, the competition began.
A mere 15 seconds later, I was the only one with my tongue still in a bowl. Stefan tapped me on the shoulder to let me know I had won. As he had instructed before the match, I showed no emotion upon winning. Instead, I raised a glass of wine and calmly stated, “To the Battalion.” As much as I wanted to drink the wine, that was also forbidden. Instead, I just set it back down, and we went on our way.
This same scene played out in venues all over Switzerland. The Battalion marched from a car dealership in Bern to a secret room under the wooden bridge in Luzern accessible only by submarine. I dipped my tongue in cheese on the top of Schilthorn and in an abandoned castle near Lugano. Not once did my match last longer than 15 seconds.
If there was resentment to me being American, I was unaware of it. My competitors all seemed to admire my skill. On multiple occasions, officials scrutinized my tongue, but as it was not surgically altered, it was deemed legal. After winning our tenth match, Stefan announced we had qualified for the finals.
Much to my surprise, the Battalion finals are held in the catacombs below the Odeon Café. I asked Stefan about the history of the place, but he claimed he knew little other than it was very ancient. We walked through a series of dark narrow passageways before finally entering a large hall that was glowing from candlelight.
There were groups of people seated at tables that surrounded the perimeter of the room, and a large cauldron next to a large metal table in the center. Unlike the other competitions, the cheese did not cool in the finals. Instead, the metal bowls were being heated by special induction squares in the table. There was no doubt that this would be the hottest fondue yet. The smell was also at a level I had not experienced before. It was going to take an incredible amount of olfactory fortitude to emerge victorious.
***
I look back up from the cheese, as an elderly woman emerges from the crowd holding a red satin bag. She says a few words I can’t understand, sticks her hand into the bag, and pulls out what looks like a pair of solid gold garden pruners. The people there to watch the finals, who have been completely silent, start whispering to each other.
Stefan leans over to give me what I expect to be last minute instructions.
“There is one thing I forgot to mention. And that is what happens to you if you lose the finals.”
I nod, not wanting to say a word.
“Do you see that pair of scissors? The winner gets to use those and take a snippet out of the losers’ tongues. Some cut the whole thing off, others take just a piece or even nothing. You never really know.”
I nod again, this time out of sheer panic.
“So if you think you want to take your tongue out of the cheese early, just remember, you might as well leave it in there, because it could be gone anyway.”
He pats me on the shoulder.
“Okay my friend, that’s really all I have to say. I wish you good luck.”
I nod a final time and wonder why Stefan is just telling me this information now. Maybe he’s lying to me, and this is a motivational ploy to make sure I kept my tongue in the cheese. Then again, what else would those golden shears be for? Maybe he is telling me the truth. I weigh the idea of losing my tongue versus earning 26 million Francs. It’s an easy decision.
I look back down at the cheese in front of me, breath in through my mouth, and get ready for one final dip.
©2024 Benj Vickers