Bread and milk brought enemies together at the time of the bitter wars between Protestants and Catholics, in what is known as the Kappel milk soup incident in 1529.

The two sides - Catholics from the mountains of central Switzerland, and Protestants from Zurich, led by the eminent religious reformist Ulrich Zwingli - were drawn up for battle near the village of Kappel in canton Zurich, so close together that their sentries could even talk to each other and fraternise.

And they realised that the Alpine troops had plenty of milk, while the men of the fertile Zurich farmlands had plenty of bread, so they resolved to get together and have a feast by mixing the two in a large pot. At the time, this was the standard Swiss breakfast. They placed the pot on the line dividing the two armies, and each party kept rigorously to its own side, but after they had eaten together the battle was called off.

A memorial in Kappel-am-Albis in canton Zurich commemorates this occasion.