Switzerland, that alpine nation stuck on a pile of high mountains, is a melting pot of cultures (four languages spoken for example) so it seems more than fitting that its national dish is a melting pot of flavors and aromas. Lets talk about melting food and the reason it is called fondue….
The Swisstory of Fondue
In a time long forgotten time melting cheese and dipping bread was a rare sight. Only after the poor people discovered that their stale bread and cheese gone bad made for a delicious combination when you would melt the latter and dip the former a new culinary (and food preservation) movement started.
By melting the old cheese in a communal fondue pot (caquelon in Swiss) over a portable stove (réchaud) heated with a candle or spirit lamp dipping and eating stale bread became a please instead of a punishment. Soon the Swiss were fondueing all their old stale bread and having fondue feasts all around.
A Swiss cheese fondue usually includes one or more of the varieties Emmentaler, Vacherin, and Gruyère and more often than not all of them together. As the fondue mixes of the day are always a combination of ages cheeses they contain no lactose. Even the lactose intolerant can enjoy & savour a Swiss cheese fondue!
To prepare a proper Swiss cheese fondue you start by adding a bit of white wine a heavy casserole, called a caquelon, that has been rubbed with garlic. The special mix of grated cheese is added to the hot wine along with a little cornstarch and a flavouring of nutmeg or kirsch and some local spices. On a low fire it is heated and melted until the magical yellow gooey dipping potion appears. Than you take your bread, dip it and savour it!
The History of Fondue
The earliest known recipe for the modern form of melted cheese fondue comes from a 1699 book published in Zürich, under the name “Käss mit Wein zu kochen” ‘(Lets cook cheese with wine). It mentions grated cheese that has to be melted with wine and subsequently should be consumed by dipping bread in it.
For a long time however the name “cheese fondue” referred to a dish composed of eggs and cheese. The renowned la Chapelle cookbook of 1735 mentions a ‘Fonduë de Fromage, aux Truffes Fraiches’ and it describes a mix between scrambled eggs, cheese and a cheese soufflé. The connoisseur Brillat-Savarin wrote in 1834 that fondue is “nothing other than scrambled eggs with cheese”. Variations included cream (“à la genevoise”, from Geneva) and truffles (“à la piémontaise”, from Piemonte which is now Italian) in addition to eggs, as well as what is now called “raclette” (“fondue valaisanne”, Wallis, the canton where Zermatt is and a late area to join the Swiss union).
The first known recipe for the modern cheese fondue under that name, with cheese and wine but no eggs, was published in 1875. There was still the problem that melting cheese resulted in a very unsmooth and non-enjoyable cheese consistency. It was only with the introduction of corn starch to Swzerland in 1905 that it became easier to make a smooth and stable emulsion of the wine and cheese and this gradually made cheese fondue more popular.
The Swiss Cheese Union (and Mafia)
After cheese got union-fied a propagator for cheese as a branded product became a force to reckon with. The Swiss cheese union was founded in the 1930s (Schweizerische Käseunion) and they became a vocal supporter for cheese and fondue. Slowly cheese fondue was popularized as a Swiss national dish mainly by that same Swiss cheese union as a way of increasing cheese consumption. The Swiss Cheese Union also created pseudo-regional recipes as part of the “spiritual defence of Switzerland”. After World War II rationing ended, the Swiss Cheese Union continued its marketing campaign (as they had to find a way of selling all their surplus cheese) sending fondue sets to military regiments and event organizers across Switzerland. Slowly but surely fondue became a symbol of Switzerland and Swiss unity.
Fondue Marketing
At the same time fondue continued to be promoted aggressively in Switzerland, with slogans like “La fondue crée la bonne humeur” (fondue creates a good mood) and “Fondue isch guet und git e gueti Luune” (fondue is good and creates a good mood)
Fondue was unknown in America, the world’s largest cheese market. The introduction of fondue to America occurred in 1964 at the New York World’s Fair when fondue was featured at the Swiss Pavilion’s Alpine restaurant. And America love it eventually leading to the world’s only fondue restaurant chain ‘the melting pot’.
Today, fondue-like dishes exist in cultures around the world, such as Chinese hot pots and Japanese shabu-shabu, in which the cookers cook chunks of meat, seafood or vegetables in a communal pot of bubbling oil or steaming broth or even cheesy mixtures. Mexico’s queso fundido is served with tortillas rather than bread, while bagna cauda in Italy relies on pureed anchovies for texture and flavor and is typically accompanied by vegetables.
The meaning of fondue
Unkonwn to even the greatest of cheese lovers he word “fondue” is the passive past participle of the French verb fondre ‘to melt’. So literally to fondue means to melt your food. It is first attested in French in 1735, in Vincent la Chapelle’s Cuisinier moderne, and in English in 1878.
Since the 1950s, the term “fondue” has been generalized to other dishes like chocolate fondue or ice cream fondue in which pieces of fruit, cookies, cakes or pastries are dipped into the mixture of choice.
Konrad Egli, a Swiss restaurateur, introduced fondue bourguignonne at his Chalet Suisse restaurant in 1956. In the mid-1960s, he invented chocolate fondue as part of a promotion for Toblerone chocolate. A sort of chocolate mousse or chocolate cake had also sometimes been called “chocolate fondue” starting in the 1930s.
Fondue is Funtodo
The reason fondue has such a long history and is still popular around the world is quite simply because Fondue is Funtodo. As a group meal dipping, chatting and savouring delicious cheese, chocolate or ice cream out of a communal pot is simply yum & fun.
Visit us at the and we show you the best and funnest fondue you can have!
