“Swiss Patrick Marxer demonstrates complex methods for fermenting meat and fish. He gives sausage-making courses and says things he doesn’t want to hear on his deathbed.
In the background, ventilation blows loudly, and the smell of smoked meat and fish fills the air. Patrick Marxer, the sixty-three-year-old owner of the Das Pure grocery store in Wetzikon, canton of Zurich, looks around the store.
From the largest room where produce is sold, we go to where the plant products are fermented. It’s pleasantly warm and smells of Asian food.
Then we move on to the meat and fish processing room. There is a large table, and sausage machines are to the right of the entrance. The room also has cabinets for smoking fish. We climb the stairs to a storage room that houses barrels of shoyu soy sauce. In the near future, Marxer would like to design this space as a wine cellar where people can taste different types of shoyu. The tour ends in a dry storage area that houses supplies, raw materials and storage containers.
30 Salmon for a Family
When Patrick was a child, his family had a small flock of sheep. From time to time, he would be present at the slaughter. Over time, there was too much meat and the family could no longer eat everything fresh. So, he started smoking the meat and processing it into sausage. As a teenager, he became fascinated and preserving meat and fish became his hobby. He received the “classic” meat and sausage recipes from Ernst Helbling, a sturgeon butcher who was then sixty-four years old, who taught him everything. In 2000, Marxer was determined to prepare delicious smoked salmon. There was organic salmon at the market, but only fresh. “Then I’ll do it myself,” he thought. The following year, he prepared the first 30 salmon himself for his family for Christmas. Later, friends and acquaintances said that they would have liked it too. In two or three years, he smoked 600 kilograms of salmon. Over time, it became difficult to produce such quantities because he didn’t have enough space. So he looked for suitable rooms and found them in Wetzikon.
As a social worker in a foundation
In addition to this hobby, until 2011 he worked as a social worker at a public foundation in the Zurich Oberland, where he was responsible for shelter care. Then his employer cut jobs, so Marxer decided to start his own business in 2012. “But if you asked me now if I would do it again, the answer would be no." Although he is the right person for creativity and product invention, he is not an “economic person.” He likes to try new fermentation methods, but he is not particularly good at business administration, such as finance, marketing and human resources, and he does not really enjoy doing it. But this is important, because Das Pure is now quite a large company with twelve employees. When it comes to business management, he is advised by a trustee and a friend. Today, he also teaches sausage-making courses. "How did I decide to teach the course? I had a feeling that there might be a need for it." His courses are mainly attended by private individuals. His shop's main customers are from the catering industry.
Products made from plant-based proteins
In addition to his wife, Marxer also has five children and two grandchildren. The latter were one of the reasons why he started reducing the amount of meat in his shop a few years ago. "What I don't want to hear on my deathbed is: 'Grandpa, you ruined our world.' That's why we have to change something, and urgently." He believes that a different chain diagram is desirable. This means that livestock farming should only start in the mountains, at an altitude of 1,400 meters, because farming is no longer possible at that altitude. Everything below should be used only for growing plants. As the amount of meat decreased, he tried new products from plant proteins. This is how he came up with various Asian fermentation methods.
He uses two methods:
One is fermentation with the noble mold Aspergillus oryzae (grown at 37 °C (99 °F)), from which, among other things, miso and shoyu are made.
The other is fermentation with Rhizopus oligosporus (grown at 30–40 °C or 85–105 °F), from which tempeh is made. [1]
In Asia, soybeans are often used for this fermentation, but Marxer and his colleagues use other legumes, such as peas and lentils, because soybeans are an allergen that he does not want in his home.
"In general, Asian cuisine has a lot more vegan ingredients. You can go for a long time in Thailand without eating a single piece of meat."
For him, the products have to be of high quality. "Das Pure probably spends a huge amount of money on its purchases compared to many others. We look for the best fishermen and buy fish from them. We look for top-notch animal welfare in the form of Demeter meat so that we can produce good things”.
He’s not exactly “Seich”.
It’s also important to him that the product is as pure as possible. That’s where the name comes from. The sausages are only seasoned with homemade spice blends, which are often made fresh in the morning. “We don’t have all the flavor stories, store-bought spice blends and things like that,” he says, running a hand through his beard. He would also never use products that have been shipped in by plane. Some imported items are used, such as duck breast from France. Marxer also never produces or sells products made from animals and plants that are on the Red List. It’s important to him to only use fish from Switzerland, preferably from farms he knows. The only exception is salmon. His salmon is home-grown and purchased from Swiss Lachs or Stadel Fischimport and is either wild Alaskan salmon or organically farmed salmon." [2]
2. Einem Metzger ist die Wurst nicht wurst: Patrick Marxer zeigt besondere Fermentationsmethoden bei Fleisch und Fisch. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH. Oct 13, 2024. Von Marlene Peschke, Kantonsschule Zürcher Oberland, Wetzikon
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