Slipping on the skin, stuffing the sausage and taking pains to avoid air bubbles: a Bernese lobby sausage is born.
The Clé de Berne has 140 members from the worlds of government, business and the arts. Fine wine and excellent food made from high-quality ingredients play an important role at these get-togethers. Furrer cites Hamburg celebrity chef Anna Sgroi, who once said that the best discussions take place over a good meal. The PR professional sees it the same way: “Exchanging ideas while eating is the most intense and open form of communication. Conversations held during a well-coordinated meal usually turn out well.” But isn’t his real intention to butter up the parliamentarians? To milk them for information? Furrer dismisses the idea: “We have no need to do so.” Clé de Berne was not conceived as a secret backroom of power, but as a place where “members like to come” regardless of their political persuasions. That, in any case, is what the statutes say. Its members include civic-minded citizens, as well as Social Democrats and Greens. Everyone is equal before a fine Bordeaux.
A twist to the left, a twist to the right – individual sausages must now be formed. Then a few are fried up fresh in the pan. It’s time for a glass of white wine. Cooking is something he takes seriously, says Furrer. “When I’m home, I cook dinner for my family.” And he enjoys making more elaborate meals for guests. As a pastor’s son there’s nothing he likes more than convivial gatherings. “There were always a lot of people around the table in my parents’ home,” he recalls.
The elevator door opens and the first female parliamentarian of the evening steps into the clubroom. She will have the opportunity to sample a piece of “Bernese lobby sausage” together with an aperitif. It is ready now, cut into bite-sized pieces and skewered on toothpicks. At the Clé de Berne, they don’t serve anything on paper plates, but on bone-white china.