The Basler Fastenwähe is a salty yeast dough pastry sprinkled with caraway seeds and shaped like pretzels. Apart from the name, Fastenwähen do not have much in common with the usual Wähen.

This pastry is extremely popular with the people of Basel at carnival time! It can also be bought in Migros stores in the region.

Unfortunately, the delicious pastry has not yet made it into Migros branches of other cooperatives. This is despite the fact that, I suspect, the fan base in the rest of Switzerland would also be very large. Unfortunately, the Migros marketing man (woman?) has not yet noticed this!!!

Here in the Bern region, I recently discovered the Fastenwähe in a Coop petrol station store, where they are selling like hot cakes. In Shoppyland Schönbühl (Migros shopping center) they are sold by the Glatz bakery. The Fastenwähen seem to be very popular there too. Sometimes they are already sold out by mid-afternoon.

When will the Fastenwähe also make it into the Migros range outside Basel? What do you think?