Fondue for the Holidays!
What a great Fondue cooking class we had last night!
We delved into a little of the history of fondue first. The cheese variety hails from Switzerland but the beef variety actually hails from France. In fact, there is some version of fondue- or food cooked in hot liquid right at the table- in almost every culture. However, the story behind Swiss fondue goes a little something like this:
Switzerland, being rather cold and blanketed in snow for most for the year, doesn't have the most conducive growing season for year round fresh veggies and fruit. Therefor, the Swiss had to rely on whatever happened to still be in the larder or whatever they could still make in the winter...and cheese and bread didn't require soil or sunlight, so they became an obvious staple of the Swiss winter diet.
Melting the cheese made it more palatable and dipping the bread into it meant that they could use dry, older bread and save the fresh for breakfast. They also realized that the cheese, left on its own, would form small balls in their stomach's and the drinking of wine, as well as adding it to the cheese sauce itself, seemed to counteract this phenomenon. And if a little wine helps, then a lot more must be even better! This gave birth to fondue as almost a drinking game whereby the poor sod who loses his bread in the pot must buy everyone a round of drinks. Soon, Cherry Kirsch was added to the repertoire and now it too is added to the sauce just at the end. Of course, it wasn't fair to the men that only they were 'punished' for the food mishaps, so the punishment for females began as a tradition of kissing all of the males at the table. In America this is often abbreviated to include only the person sitting next to the female- which just so happens to usually be her husband or sweetie anyway. I prefer the more courageous Swiss version, myself!
We began the class by learning how to make sure the wine base for the fondue doesn't pull away from the Emmenthaler and Gruyere cheeses. Since we only had one male student, he was the very lucky recipient of ALL of the kisses bestowed by the poor gals who managed to accidentally drop a bit into the pot!
Then, we made Beef Bourguinon fondue with a Creamy, Curry Rouille sauce, a Bleu Cheese and Horseradish Sauce with fresh Chives, a Bearnaise Sauce with fresh Tarragon...and learned how to correct for the eggs separating from the lemon juice and wine which can happen if the acid base hasn't been neutralized with enough heat first. And lastly, we made a chocolate ganache with cherry kirsch and dipped our fresh fruit and pound cake in for a perfect ending to the meal.
Traditionally, fondue is served on New Year's Eve in Switzerland, where I actually had the opportunity to experience it in person many years ago in Interlaken. The meal itself can take several hours and by the end everyone is not only quite full, a bit tipsy but also on a much more intimate basis with everyone else. For me, food and affection make a perfect partnership so of course, Fondue is one of my all time favorite Holiday traditions!
