It was the ’60s, and everyone was feelin’ pretty groovy, skewering bits of bread and floating them in a sea of fondue.
Instant and international foods graced our tables. We’d sent men to the moon with Tang, by golly.
But even in the safety and security of our kitchens, there was a connection to the harsher, outside world: “Better Homes & Gardens Guide to Entertaining” (1968) published a recipe for Bomb Shelter Chocolate-Cherry Delight Cake. It could be made in advance, using devil’s food cake mix, canned cherry pie filling, instant pudding and dessert topping mix.
While the jungles in Vietnam were aflame with Agent Orange, home kitchens were burning, as well. Flambe was big, and virtually nothing was off-limits: Cocktails, meats, desserts, oysters, hot dogs, even baked beans could be set aglow, according to Sylvia Lovegren in “Fashionable Food.” “The Pyromaniac’s Cookbook” (1968) was there to assist the home chef who needed more ideas and encouragement.
Somehow, in the midst of all the craziness, fondue found its way to these shores. We loved the idea of international gourmet cooking, especially the whole apres-ski notion.
True to form, the Americans took the humble Swiss dish crafted from stale bread and hardened cheese and spiffed it up to reflect their own tastes. Canned soups and individually wrapped pieces of processed cheese substituted for Emmentaler and Gruyere cheeses. Dunked foods were dredged through curried mayonnaise, barbecue sauce, chutney or mustard sauce before being eaten.
Fondue pots were standard-issue wedding gifts, with 37 brands on the market. Turns out anything could be cooked in a fondue pot, from hamburger and spaghetti sauce mix to frosting and marshmallows.
Part of the popularity of fondue pots was their space-age look, right down to the tiny blue flame that flickered and danced under the pot. But, by the 1970s, fondue had lost its glamor and many of those pots were put in storage or tossed out at a garage sale.
Almost 40 years later, fondue is back, remarkably unchanged from its original incarnation. Another thing that hasn’t changed: our insatiable impulse to put our imprimatur on a cuisine. When Bon Appetit published a cheese fondue recipe in the 1990s, the magazine gave it a Tex-Mex twist with Monterey Jack cheese, tequila, chilies and cilantro.
And thanks to ready-made sauces at gourmet stores such as Dean & DeLuca and Williams-Sonoma, we don’t even have to make our own.
Spicy Cheese Fondue
– 2 cups Emmentaler cheese, or American Swiss cheese, shredded
– 2 cups Gruyere cheese, or American Swiss cheese, shredded
– 2 tablespoons flour
– 1 1/2 cup dry white wine
– 1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce
Toss cheeses with flour. Heat white wine and hot pepper sauce in fondue pot or 3-quart saucepan over medium heat; bring to a boil. Add cheese mixture 1 cup at a time, stirring constantly, until cheese is melted smooth.
To serve, remove pot from heat and place on lighted burner on top of table. Adjust flame as necessary. Serve fondue with Italian or French bread cubes.
Makes 6 servings.
Cheesytrivia
– Cold drinks shouldn’t be served with cheese fondue because they would make the cheese hard to digest, according to old Swiss wives’ tales. Better to drink hot tea or kirsch.
– All fondue diners should swirl the bread in a figure eight motion to keep the cheese mixture emulsified. Just dippity-doing is bad form.
– The crust on the bottom is a delicacy. Really.
– If a man loses his bread in the fondue, he must buy drinks for all the diners. If a woman loses her cube, she must kiss the dining companions on her left and right.
– Toblerone was the original chocolate for chocolate fondue, dubbed the “New Hip Dip” by Look magazine.
SOURCE: “FASHIONABLE FOOD,” BY SYLVIA LOVEGREN.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Michael Morgan (mnmorgan@tribune.com)
