Capuns
Small rolls of chard leaves stuffed with spätzli batter mixed with dried meat, cooked in stock and usually covered with cream or cheese. Born in the Surselva, the dish is now cooked throughout the Grisons.
On the table, washed chard leaves wait in a row. On each one goes a spoonful of batter; the edges are folded in, the leaf is rolled up tight, and a toothpick holds it all together. And so on, leaf after leaf.
Origin
Capuns come from the Surselva, the Oberland of the Grisons, according to the Grisons tourist board, and today they are cooked throughout the canton. It started out as a poor people’s dish, Beobachter magazine points out: chard and herbs grew in the garden, the hens laid the eggs, the farm supplied flour, milk and butter, and the meat was whatever was left over from the day before. Nothing to buy, then, but a great deal of patience. Every family has its own version, so much so that some speak of one recipe per farm.
Making
The base is a spätzli batter (flour, eggs, water or milk, salt), beaten until glossy. Into it go small pieces of dried meat or sausage (salsiz, Landjäger, Bündnerfleisch or bacon, depending on the household) and herbs: parsley, chives and often curly mint, which many old recipes call for. Once rolled, the capuns cook for a few minutes in salted water until they rise to the surface, or simmer for about twenty minutes in stock thinned with cream. They are then covered with mountain cheese and put in the oven. Other recipes simply layer them with cheese and drizzle them with hot butter.
At the table
In the Surselva, chard is hardly ever bought: according to Beobachter, everyone grows it in their garden, and it only appears at the farmers’ market at the beginning of summer. There are even capuns that are never rolled, known as “lazy” ones: leaves and batter cook together in water, like pizokel, then get hot butter and a little cheese. Long a home-cooking dish, it has made its way into restaurants and even into fine dining.
Today
The tourist board presents it as the symbol of Grisons cuisine. As guest canton at the Olma in St. Gallen in 2022, the Grisons presented, according to its press release, a 17-metre roll, longer than the unofficial record of 16.44 metres set in 2018. Made with flour from Tiefencastel, chard from Malans and meat from Ramosch, it weighed about 45 kg with the milky stock in which it had been reheated, and ended up as about a thousand bites, handed out to the spectators of the parade.
Sources: Canton of Grisons, press release of 15 October 2022; Grisons tourist board, “Auf den Spuren der Capuns”, capuns recipe and page “Capuns-Kochbuch”; Beobachter, “Köstliche Faulenzer”; SRF, “SRF bi de Lüt – Landfrauenküche”, capuns recipe.