Fondue

From ArticleWorld

Fondue is a shared dish that is used at parties. Fondue is placed in an earthen ware pot called a caquelon and the pot is placed on a small burner so that the fondue is kept warm. The word fondue comes from the French word fonder meaning to melt because the contents in the pot is kept warm and in its liquid state so that people can use forks to dip into the sauce. Cheese fondue is the best known kind of fondue; however, there are other types of fondue that can be put in the pot. Fondue recipes are not fixed and vary according to the cook that is preparing the fondue.

Fondue etiquette

Because it is a communal dish, fondue has many etiquette standards that vary from practical to funny. Some people believe that it is improper to allow a person’s lips or tongue to touch the fondue fork. In addition, with meat fondue, it is necessary to remove the meat from the fondue fork with a dinner fork. It is a tradition that if the bread or fruit is lost in the cheese the person who is responsible for this infraction is supposed to buy a round of drinks for everyone at the table or the person can be punished by some other manner.

The origin of cheese fondue

Cheese fondue was created because it had to be created. This is because in the remote mountain villages in the Swiss Alps people had to count on locally made foods to survive. In winter, fresh food was scarce and Swiss people discovered that stale cheese when melted was edible. Local wines and seasonings were added and dry and hard bread was edible when it was dipped and swirled in melted cheese. In some cheese fondue, fruit and potatoes are used instead of bread. There are a few varieties of cheese fondue from different countries such as Swiss fondue, French fondue, and Italian fondue. Eve though cheese fondue is traditionally a Swiss dish, it was not common until the 1950s when the slowing of the cheese industry in Switzerland needed a method to increase sales of cheese. Fondue was the perfect solution because it permitted dinners to consume a half of a pound of cheese in one sitting.

Dessert fondue

Dessert fondue is also very popular today. Recipes for dessert fondue started in the 1960s and they involve chocolate and pieces of fruit, especially strawberries and different types of pastries such as croissants.