Cheese fondue is a dish that is almost two centuries old.
Fondue is a gastronomic preparation born in Switzerland . Its traditional preparation consists of melting cheese in a pot and eating it with bread .
Various accompaniments
Sometimes different types of cheese are combined in fondue. In addition to bread, on the other hand, sausages , asparagus , carrots , chicken pieces and other foods can be used to accompany the cheese.
It is common for the casserole (also referred to as fondue) to be placed on a tabletop stove . In many places, a ready-made cheese mixture is sold so that those who want to eat fondue simply place the product inside the container and melt it.
Fondue is eaten with a long skewer , where the bread is stuck. This skewer is inserted into the melted cheese and moved.
Origin
It is estimated that fondue arose among Swiss shepherds. To take advantage of the old and hardened cheese, they heated it with the aim of melting it. The cheese could be melted with lard ( butter ), egg , white wine , kirsch (cherry liqueur), and other ingredients.
Other early people believed to have been the first to make fondue were Swiss mountaineers. In this way they took advantage of the cheese that could no longer be eaten directly, and turned it into a meal to combat the arid cold of winter. Officially, this recipe was published for the first time in 1825, as part of the title La physiologie du goût , by chef Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin , who claimed to have come across it in the Swiss canton of Vaud.
In his version, butter and eggs were used to melt the cheese, a recipe that was maintained for several decades, until in the 1880s another one emerged that used white wine and dispensed with eggs in the book titled Practical Cooking , winner of a culinary award in Zurich.
The story of fondue can be told from several perspectives, since this peculiar recipe is also part of the tradition of other parts of the world: in France , in Franche-Comté and Savoy; in Italy , from Piedmont and the Aosta Valley. Speaking specifically of Savoy, around 1930 it reached its peak, and today it is a dish that cannot be missing from the tables of tourists.
Other ingredients
It should be noted that there are other types of fondue that are not cheese. Meat fondue , known as bourguignonne , consists of cooking pieces of meat in the oil that is placed in the casserole and then passing them through sauces. Chocolate fondue , on the other hand, involves melting chocolate to eat with cookies, fruits, etc.
Chocolate fondue appeared in the 1960s, when this way of treating ingredients surpassed the barriers of salty food to reach the field of pastry . The heater used in this case makes the chocolate melt and continuously flow downwards as if it were a fountain, an image that impresses while tempting diners with one of the most popular ingredients in history ready. to bathe other foods and combine it with ginger, cinnamon and other seasonings.
The chocolate fountain, one of the many versions of fondue
In the world there are other fondue recipes that use very different ingredients: the Chinese one uses vegetables and slices of meat; the Vietnamese , shrimp and meat; Japanese , vegetables and pieces of meat; Bacchus , adds wine to meat and vegetables; la bressane , chicken, sometimes breaded, that is fried in oil.
Cheese fondue should not be confused with raclette , a dish that requires melting raclette cheese to serve with sausages and potatoes. Nor with bagna cauda , which is based on the preparation of a sauce with walnut or olive oil, garlic and anchovies.