Swiss Fondue

Pizzas and burgers are discussed plenty here, but lets focus on a dish from a country stuck between Italy and Germany. I name : The Cheese Fondue.
Did you ever had fondue ? How was it ? What was it like ? What cheeses ?
If you have any recipes you'd like to share please go.
Walliser Raclette-fags also welcome.

Other urls found in this thread:

fonduefred.com/index.html
thedailymeal.com/entertain/how-throw-ultimate-70s-fondue-party
telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/seasonal-food-and-drink/10572010/Fondue-recipe-welcome-back-to-a-1970s-classic.html
kitchensimmer.com/2012/01/1970s-disco-and-fondue-party.html
psychologytoday.com/blog/psychology-yesterday/201308/the-american-way-swinging
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

Geneva here. Proper Swiss fondue is half gruyère half vacherin. Traditionally you put in white wine but champagne or beer can be used and work well. Protip: use corn starch to give your fondue some thickness if need be.
Popular credence is that you should only drink alcohol or hot beverages while eating or you might get sick. In reality it's like swimming after eating: if you're not a dumbass you'll figure that one cold drink over the meal isn't really an issue, just don't douse all the melted cheese with 2 liters of icy water.
Also Raclette>Fondue.

I've never had it, it looks ok.
Almost no one in the USA gives a flying fuck about it b/c it's associated with '70s swinger parties and disco.
Hilariously, to me at least, the image you have chosen appears on the website of a restaurant about 1 mile from my house - an establishment I've ignored for 11 years.
They have managed to stay in business, so they must have some local following.

>the image you have chosen appears on the website of a restaurant about 1 mile from my house
OP's image is probably not actually from that restaurant, as it features an advertisment in French for a Swiss beer.

You should try fondue at least once though, it's fairly unique.

>OP's image is probably not actually from that restaurant
Oh yeah, I agree completely, as far as I can tell it's a fucking thumbnail they ripped off from somewhere else.
fonduefred.com/index.html

>fonduefred.com/index.html
Seems pretty memey, kind of appalling how they use all sorts of cheese in there but only ever bother with gruyère and appenzeller as a Swiss cheeses, which I assume there are more available in California. Also they mispelt cheddar on their menu.
I doubt it's held by a Swiss or someone who actually cares.

I wouldn't advise it if it were in Switzerland, that being said maybe it's standard for an American fondue place.

There's nothing "standard" about an American fondue place, unless you have a time machine. Fondue was a fad in the late 60s and early 70's but it's pretty much dead now. Fondue restaurants are rare here.

>b/c it's associated with '70s swinger parties and disco.
That's strange. I never heard it was associated with anything but Switzerland.
Care to tell me more, or redirect me to somewhere I can read about it ? Only thing google gives me are bad recipes and one article about the Swiss cheese union and "cheese rebels"
Its a photo on wikipedia, I generally don't tak epictures of my food.
Its best to dilute the corn starch in a bit of strong alcohol, then put it at the end of the preparation, otherwise you might get crumbs of starch in the fondue

What I meant is maybe it's as good as you're going to get over there, if so my saying it looks like shit is to be taken with a grain of salt.

best fundew is a nice jar of pic related

I think they referenced the "swingers eating fondue" American fad in Asterix in Switzerland, where fondue is a core part of the roman's degenerate orgies.

>Its best to dilute the corn starch in a bit of strong alcohol, then put it at the end of the preparation, otherwise you might get crumbs of starch in the fondue
That's corrrect, yeah.

>Also they mispelt cheddar on their menu.
We need a Virginer vs. Chadder

I found this on a google book but you're right, I completely forgot about that in Astérix.

for me, first hit in google for 'fondue 70s'
thedailymeal.com/entertain/how-throw-ultimate-70s-fondue-party
5th hit
telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/seasonal-food-and-drink/10572010/Fondue-recipe-welcome-back-to-a-1970s-classic.html
10th hit
kitchensimmer.com/2012/01/1970s-disco-and-fondue-party.html

Do you really want to bring the swing into this?
psychologytoday.com/blog/psychology-yesterday/201308/the-american-way-swinging
>Party games like strip poker and spin-the-bottle were known to lead to more intimate recreation, and après ski soirees could get pretty wild after some fondue and a few bottles of Almaden or Blue Nun wine.
I'll let you go down that rabbit hole if you like.

>That's strange. I never heard it was associated with anything but Switzerland.

I'm not the guy you're replying to, but I've never heard of the "swinger party" association either. That said, it was very much a fad from the late 60's and early 70's, so maybe it just got associated with other 70's sterotypes? If you look at magazines from that era you will see a lot of ads (often disguised as recipes) for fondue. Chances are your parents & other relatives of the appropriate age have a "fondue set" from that era stuck in the back of a closet somewhere. Pic related, a page from the 1972 Sears catalog.

I've seen the fad referenced in an episode of That 70s Show too.
My guess was always that they associated all putting their forks in the same plate with all putting their dicks in the same pussy. Or maybe they had dares for people who lose their piece of bread like we do, and it went sexual from here.

You also need to put in enough garlic.
Try dipping pears in the cheese. Very delicious.
Also, i orefer fondue over raclette. But raclette is very delicious too. I like mine with onions and bacon.

Now i crave fondue for dinner.

Another protip is breaking an egg inside the pan after you've eaten all the cheese, and scraping it like you would scrambled eggs, while also scraping the grilled cheese at the bottom of the pan ("religieuse").

The tricks is to rub the interior of the pan with the cut garlic, then dice it and leave it in the pan.

Never heard of that... sounds like a good idea. I'll try it the next time. We just scrape the rest out. We call the crispy cheese "grosi" and i have zero idea why but it's yummy.

I love fishing out the garlic at the end.

Do you have rules for when someone loses it's bread?

In our family, the first who loses his bread has to clean out the caquelon in the end.

>Do you have rules for when someone loses it's bread?
I like : Singing the first verse of Cé què lainô loud enough.
Anything other than singing just messes with the rhythm of the meal.

I've tried making fondue on three occasions, and it never turns out right. The last time, I followed a recipe for classic fondue, using gruyere and (If I remember correctly) emmenthal and white wine. I followed the directions exactly, but it turned out a blobby, greasy, separated mess. Can anyone help me master this stuff? It makes me fucking insane that I'm failing at it. I can do all kinds of complicated cooking, I have easily mastered intricate technique, but for some fucking reason, I can't seem to make fondue. Or fudge, for that matter. Fudge and fondue are my two great failures in the kitchen for some bizarre reason.

Other side of the alps here (austria for ameribros).
I have fondue with my employees every month tastes great with some pic related.

South Styrian white wine is the best.

no because we're not kids anymore.
we maybe make a stulid comment and continue our meal.

>>separated
sounds like you heated up too much. like any other emulsion if you get it too hot it will split.

Replace emmenthal with vacherin if you can find it or appenzeller; put in corn storch deluted in hard alcohol (kirsh is popular) if you didn't as it helps keeping everything together; never ever let the cheese still, keep twirling it with a wooden spoon until served.

>I followed the directions exactly, but it turned out a blobby, greasy, separated mess
I would suggest more control over the fire, do not hesitate to take some time melting the cheese, even if it seems slow to you. Always stir (softly) with a wooden spatula.
Emmenthal might be too fat, causing much excess oil.

I suggest : 1kg/4 persons
330g 6-7y old gruyère. grated
330g 12y old gruyère. grated
330g Vacherin fribourgeois. diced (1-2 cm dice)
1 glass (1-1.5 dcl) dry white wine
garlic
1-1.5 tea-spoon of corn starch
william pear strong alcohol (or any clear alcohol (40%) from fruit) - You'll need to dilute the corn starch with that alcohol so as to obtain a milky-white substance (best to be careful here, you don't want too much alcohol), the starch must not form clusters !
Rub a cut garlic clover in the inside of the caquelon, dice and throw in.
Heat on medium/medium-low, throw in the vacherin and the white wine. stir softly.
Once the vacherin is completely melt in, add both gruyères, stir very softly so it doesn't stick
Once the gruyère has melt, add the corn starch - alcohol mix, stir softly.
put on a heater, serve. Control the potency of the heater during meal, if you get big bubbles slow the heater or you WILL get a separation, heat insufficiently and it will congeal.
With that cheese mix and quantities of wine you should get a creamym silky fondue with a potent but soft flover (not too salty). If you want it more liquid add more wine.

>Styrian
I don't know why Styrian sounds like the origin of a wine you would find in Dishonored. But I always get that impression

Thanks guys. I'm determined to get this right.

Burger here. I've had fondue at a restaurant, fucking delicious. Don't recall the cheeses. Appreciate some of the recipes in this thread, I'll try some at home soon.

Would love to try Raclette as well.

Demi Swiss here (my mum's a Swissizen but I'm not).
I've had it lots. The Romands insist everyone does it their way but the reality of it is that you can find some regionalism with it. My mother was raised in Zug and Zürich so the most common fondue I've had growing up was gruyère, emmentaler and parmigiano or sbrinz but my favourite is fondue Leventinese which is gruyère (pretty sure all fondue has gruyère in it), aged St Gotthard and Blenio cheeses with garlic and a little white pepper.

My mom and her entire side of the family say to not drink iced drinks with fondue but I always thought it was just peculiar to them and not a Swiss-wide thing. No I'm wondering what other silliness they've told me might be culturally Swiss and not just family oddities.
How about not eating eggs at night? Is that one, too?

>How about not eating eggs at night?
Never heard of it.

I know that there is a law in one canton that says you can't carry more than 3 ducks on your person at any given time but I've never heard about eggs

...

Fondue tastes pretty boring, and I saw no tourist enjoying it during my Switzerland trip.
If you're going to Switzerland, do not pay 50 CHF for a vat of cheese to dip bread into.
On the other hand, we had a ton of rosti and enjoyed it.

Damn, I don't where you ate but its usually the opposite. Since it was 50 CHF I guess it was either Zurich or Geneva, right ? If Geneva at what restaurant did you eat ?
Rösti is just potato.

>tfw mom's fondue on a cold winter evening with the family

>tfw eating homemade fondue at a friend's house while its snowing outside and a fire is roaring in the fireplace, an ordnance rifle laying against the wall

Is that medicinal fondue?

I had it in Zurich. Bready gud stuff. But raclette was better.

xddd no it's a big plus, xdyxdxdxd

Got a bunch of this stuff on sale. It ain't half bad desu. I add garlic to it though.

eating fondue is borderline retarded behaviour

Why ?

That's the most flyover post of the day. World cuisine shouldn't be regarded as fad, and what you're saying reeks of a lack of culinary curiousness

The fondue restaurant he was taling about was in Berkeley though.

I was on a school trip to Crans Montana once and they served some fondue that tasted how dirty feet smell if that makes sense. Is that normal?

>Is that normal?
Yes. Many cheeses contain similar bacteria to the ones that live on feet.

>Is that normal?
If they served fondue for a whole class itmight not have been good. Probably one of those disgusting fondue bubes that you have to melt in the caquelon.
But then again it IS cheese so it tastes like it.