Cheese Fondue

Last Christmas Eve, I was talking with our nephew Casey. He mentioned a visit to our home as a young boy, and then asked “Do you remember making cheese fondue at the cabin? That was so cool!” The memories of that weekend, and our ‘70s era burnt orange fondue pot came flooding back. 

Fondue, and particularly cheese fondue has been around a while. Actually, a long while. Around 800BC Homer wrote the Iliad, and in it, we read of a woman serving a mixture of wine, shredded goat cheese and barley meal. It’s a recipe quite similar to a cheese fondue. The oldest copy of a recipe from Switzerland is in a book from 1699 and it describes “cooking cheese with wine.”  Cheese fondue became the official Swiss dish in the 19th century. 

 Our own journey with fondue started a couple hundred years later in the 1970s, when it was all the rage in America. I think I read somewhere that from the ‘60s thru the ‘80s, three out of every five homes in America owned a fondue pot. We received our set in 1978 as a wedding present. It was from Le Creuset, who everyone knows now for their high-end colorful enameled cast iron cookware. Of course, since it was the ‘70s, ours was burnt orange in color. 

Stationed in Europe with the Army for most of the ‘80s, we used our fondue set semi-regularly, having friends over for a classic cheese fondue, or occasionally a meat based one. I don’t really recall us doing chocolate fondue more than once or twice, but desserts were never our thing. I also recall having cheese fondue on ski trips in the Austrian Alps multiple times. Of course that was the perfect setting after a hard day of hiking or skiing – with friends at a local gasthaus in a village in the Alps. Life doesn’t get much better. 

 After moving back to the States in ‘89, we eventually bought a small log-cabin in the mountains of West Virginia and went there regularly for weekend trips. The cabin is also where the fondue set took up residence. It seemed a more fitting location than a townhouse in suburbia. We’d occasionally have fondue there with visiting family or friends and that is where we ate it with Casey. 

 In ‘95*, Casey and our niece Diane flew out from Illinois for a visit with Uncle Max and Aunt Cathy. They were somewhere around 11 or 12 at the time. This was all pre-9/11 and kids flying on their own was no big deal. We spent some time doing tourist things in DC, and then drove a couple of hours to our cabin, near Wardensville, WVA.

Surrounded by woods and backing up the George Washington National Forest, the cabin was a great place for hiking, fishing, cooking out and having a fun time in general. We did a couple of hikes to nearby ponds with them, and since this was all pre-internet, played Monopoly at night. The cabin was small and pretty rustic, so Diane and Casey took turns sleeping on an air mattress or the couch. On one of the evenings, we had cheese fondue for dinner.  I don’t believe either of them had it before, but both were really excited about it.  A communal meal, dipping squares of bread into melted cheese – What’s not to like?  In an interesting twist to the whole story, at their current ages of 42 and 41, Diane and Casey are slightly older than Cath and I were in 1995 – we were 39 and 40. ;-). We recently had great fun reminiscing about the meal, that evening and the trip in general. To me, it’s always interesting how food can trigger memories.

 I’m betting the last time we used the fondue set was sometime not too long after their visit. Since then, it’s gone unused for nearly 30 years. We still own it and it currently lives at the Bayhouse. After talking with Casey, I dug around, and eventually found it on a back shelf in our pantry there. I wiped the dust off the box and pulled it out.  It was fine and looked just as I remembered it. 

 Looking online, Fondue’s popularity is on the rise again. Evidently it’s never really gone away. Instead, it has cycled up and down over the years. I believe we’ll have to fire that puppy up sometime soon, before this winter ends. Some Emmentaler and Gruyère cheese, garlic, a couple cups of white wine, a little Kirsch or Plum Schnapps, some paprika, nutmeg and pepper. A loaf of stale bread cut into cubes for dipping, and then gathering around the table with friends. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.  

 Addendum:

• * Talking with Diane and Casey, we were trying to figure out exactly which year they visited between ‘93 and ‘96. Then Casey remembered: “I’m pretty sure it was ‘95 because you were playing the new album, “Jagged Little Pill” by Alanis Morisette when you picked us up from the airport, and it came out in June of ‘95.”  That’s a good enough reference for me. Also, thanks to both of them, along with Cathy for their inputs to this blog.
• It’s worth noting our Crock Pot, Fondue Pot and Betty Crocker Cookbook, all from the ‘70’s, are all still functional and all have the same burnt orange color.