History of cheese fondue (Part II): Interview with Isabelle Raboud-Schuele

Q: You are director of the Musee gruerien in the heart of cheese country, and you are a specialist in the history of cheese fondue in Switzerland. Following Part I of a blog on the history of cheese fondue, I have a few questions I’d like to ask you about the development of the dish in Switzerland. There’s a 17^th century dish very like fondue in a Zurich cookbook that historians think is probably the oldest existing written recipe - but apparently in the 18^th and 19^th centuries Swiss cookery books do not include a cheese section, and precursors of fondue are found with egg dishes?

A: Yes. Recipes for eggs scrambled in cheese could be found in Menon’s La cuisinière bourgeoise suivie de l’office, published in Paris in 1746 republished in Brussels and in Neuchâtel in 1771 and later included in the Cuisinier Suisse in 1824. The same recipe was found in an 1867 Fribourg hand-written recipe book: ‘’Put a quarter of a pound of grated cheese, a knob of fresh butter about half the size of an egg, chopped parsley, salt, pepper and half a glass of white wine in a pot and boil over a low heat, stirring continuously until the cheese is melted. Then add six beaten eggs and scramble them over a low heat with the cheese. Serve hot.”

Q: But the culinary dictionary Dictionnaire universel de cuisine: Encyclopédie illustrée d’hygiène alimentaire, written by Valaisan Joseph Favre and printed in 1894, takes that a lot further, doesn’t it?

A: It includes various recipes under the title ‘fondue’: Italian ‘fondue soufflée’; fondue from the Vaud region, with Gruyère and Emmental cheese, wine and eggs; Geneva fondue, similar but with cream added; and Piemonte ‘fondue’ [fonduta] with Tomme or Fontina cheese, cream, eggs and truffles. Favre was a chef in hotels in various European capital cities and his publication leads us to believe that the term fondue covered many variations of a culinary blend of high fat cheese. It was neither one set dish nor a meal in itself as it is today.

Q: Where did the dish we know today as Swiss fondue originate, and what about the regional differences?

A: Cookery books from the 20^th century indicate fondue as originating from the Neuchâtel area and attribute a ‘half and half’ recipe principally to the Vaud region (with two types of cheese, Gruyère and Vacherin Fribourgeois). In general, the variation in recipes between the different cantons or regions of Switzerland is essentially made by the variation in the local white wine. Fondue using only Vacherin cheese and no wine, just a little water, is considered a specialty of the Fribourg area.

Q: So fondue came later to the Swiss-German part of the country?

A: That’s right. It was around 1900 in the urban French-speaking part of Switzerland that this egg dish developed into fondue as we know it today. In the German-speaking part of Switzerland, the 1699 recipe for cheese cooked with wine is not called fondue and Brillat-Savarin’s recipe [the French epicure Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s Physiologie du goût, ou Méditations de gastronomie transcendante, published in 1825, quoted a recipe he discovered in Vaud] is presented as scrambled eggs with cheese (Rührei mit Käse). Up until 1930, fondue was essentially only known in the French-speaking part of Switzerland but thereafter it became popular throughout Switzerland, to the point of becoming a national dish. This was due to the success of intensive campaigns to promote cheese, led by the Swiss Union for Marketing Cheese in the 1930’s. Cheese production exceeded consumption and hence in order to expand the market for this former export, the Swiss needed to be convinced to eat more cheese.

Recipe books detailed four different variations of fondue, explicitly linked to various regions of Switzerland, thus encouraging fondue to become a patriotic dish. Cookery books of that time gave basic advice on how to successfully prepare a fondue, proving that this skill was not yet widely acquired. After wartime restrictions were lifted, the campaign intensified to increase the consumption of cheese across the entire Swiss population. Thus the Swiss army began to include cheese fondue on its menu. The Swiss Union for Marketing Cheese purchased cases of fondue pots, burners and fondue forks and sent them to various military regiments or, upon request, to event organizers throughout the country.  Recipes and tips were given on how to prepare fondue for four, ten or one hundred people! The Swiss happily adopted the wonderful slogan “fondue puts us in a good mood” and it soon became an everyday expression.  Posters depicting rain or snow as “fondue weather” reinforced the idea that fondue gives a feeling of warmth both in and among guests. Those sharing the fondue all dip their fork in the same pot, hence creating and strengthening group identity. During the 1980’s, the slogan was translated into Swiss German dialect and it remains widely-known in its unpronounceable abbreviation “figugegl”.

Up until the 1980’s, professional cooks still considered fondue as a “snack” or a meal suitable for the wine cellar. Some publications describe fondue as more favored by men than women. Restaurants specializing in serving fondue differ from other restaurants because of the pervasive, strong smell of cheese, incompatible with gastronomy. Fondue is no longer just a refined dish amongst others, as it was in 18^th century cookery books. Today, it is both a meal and a ceremony all in one.

Q: How about preparing fondue? Any tips?

A: The recipe for fondue is, in itself, quite simple, but preparing it can go horribly wrong! The main difficulty is obtaining and maintaining the right texture throughout the entire meal. In 1862, Duryea developed cornstarch in the USA and it entered the Swiss market under the brand name Maïzena in 1905. Nowadays, this is a discrete but essential ingredient of fondue. The powder cornstarch is mixed into some cherry eau de vie [cherry brandy commonly referred to as Kirsch] and helps blend all the ingredients together. It replaces the eggs and flour of earlier recipes.

Yet eggs are not necessarily totally excluded. If the amount of fondue served fails to satisfy hungrier guests, at the end of the fondue the hostess can crack a few eggs into the hot fondue pot and scramble them.  Today’s recipes for fondue actually suggest a generous portion of cheese. Brillat-Savarin suggested one egg per person and the third of the weight of the eggs in cheese - which is not such a large quantity. During the 20^th century, recipes gradually increased the portion of cheese per person to 150 grams and then 200 grams, or even 220 grams in the Swiss army.

However, the variety of cheese used has not changed.  Fondues contain a mix of cheeses, with Gruyère always prominent. Using cheeses of varying maturity helps to balance taste and consistency and discussing the appropriate blend is part of the whole fondue ritual - it requires a certain amount of confidence in your cheese supplier.

The Swiss use dry white wine to make fondue, usually Chasselas.  The acidity of the wine determines the homogeneity of the fondue and, if it is insufficient, a small amount of lemon juice can be added.

Pepper appears in all fondue recipes, from the oldest to those in today’s cook books. It supposedly helps digestion. Pepper links fondue to ancient culinary traditions and times when it was a precious spice, hence making fondue less of a modest meal. Sometimes parsley is included in the list of ingredients for fondue, though this seems a little surprising nowadays.

Q:  What about fondue pots and burners?

A: The word caquelon was first used to describe a small pot in the 19^th century in the Jura Mountain region. The Bonfol potters of that region made fondue pots distributed throughout Switzerland up until 1957. Enameled cast iron pots proved to be less fragile and became popular in the mid 20^th century. The word caquelon spread throughout Switzerland alongside fondue itself and, since 1975, remains in French even in documents in the other national languages. Today, both the fondue pot itself and its name caquelon are used exclusively for fondue. 18^th century cookery books mention cooking over embers, but this has since been replaced by a gas, electric or spirit burner. Promoting fondue as a family meal entailed manufacturing burners suitable for general use.  A fondue pot and its burner only became part of standard Swiss kitchen equipment after 1950. Nowadays, fondue pots come in various sizes and colors or even with fashionable designs, such as the yellow pots with painted cheese holes, matching the Swiss ski team’s ski suits of the 1990’s, or the red pot with its white cross sold after the Swiss national exhibition in 2002.

Q: You say that fondue is not an Alpine specialty, in the sense of its originating in the actual mountains, you say that it originated in the Jura and Alpine lowlands.

A: The evolution of fondue recipes over the past three centuries leads us to conclude that fondue did not originate in the mountains. During the 18^th century, fondue was essentially consumed in the upper class households in the small towns of the Jura region and lowland Switzerland.  Cheese making, especially hard cheese varieties, blossomed in the Swiss Pre-Alps and in particular in Gruyères. Wealthy ‘cheese lords’ controlled the lucrative export of cheese to Italy or France.  During the 19^th century, cheese making spread to the lowlands and the development of modern equipment meant that milk could be transformed into cheese throughout the year. The summer production of cheese over wood-fire in alpine chalets could not keep up with the strong competition and so the economy in the Pre-Alps weakened. Since then, the press has highlighted the alpine image of dairy products and cheese making, to encourage the entire nation to consume cheese produced industrially in the lowland regions. Postcards of Gruyères dating around 1900 do not depict fondue and in 1930 fondue was more linked to modern living than to local tradition. Hence studio photographs were used in advertising.

Nowadays, fondue is most eaten in ski resorts or mountain restaurants. The younger generation enjoys sharing a fondue ‘on a mountain peak’ after a long hike or in numerous other unusual situations. This stems from the nutritional and social qualities of a fondue highlighted in various slogans. Medieval precepts class fondue as warming; contemporary dieticians class it as too high in calories yet requiring energy to digest; fondue is good on cold days and ‘puts us in a good mood’. Today fondue is above all renowned for its social aspect. Sharing a national dish dates back to the spiritual defense of Switzerland in the years preceding the Second World War. Thereafter the consumption of fondue sustained the nation’s emblematic dairy industry and united the different regions of the country around one dish. We can therefore say that the marketing of fondue has been a perfect success.

Portrait of Isabelle Raboud-Schüle courtesy of www.musee-gruerien.ch