Fondue

Fondue is a Swiss dish in which cheese is melted and placed inside a communal pot, kept warm by a small burner or tealight and various food items such as cubed bread or vegetables are dipped into the cheese.

Fondue is also popular for dessert using ingredients such as chocolate, caramel, and marshmallow as the dipping sauce for fruit, cookies or pastries.

Fast Facts

1. Name derives from the French verb fondre meaning "to melt"
2. Peaked in popularity during the 1970s
3. Types of fondue cheese: Gruyère, Emmental, Vacherin, Raclette, and Fontina

Classic fondue

The most commonly used fondue cheeses are Gruyère, Emmental, Vacherin, Raclette, and Fontina. The cheese is blended with white wine, herbs or spices and the pot, called a caquelon, is rubbed with a fresh garlic clove. Bread is then cut into cubes and speared on a fondue fork and dipped into the melted cheese.

Tradition

There is a rule of no "double-dipping" into the pot, and tradition states that if a woman drops a piece of bread into the pot, she must kiss the man to her left, and if a man drops a piece of bread into the pot, he buys a bottle of wine for the host.

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