Cheese Fondue

A communal pot of melted Gruyère and Vacherin cheese with white wine and garlic, for dipping cubes of crusty bread.

Fondue developed in Switzerland's Alpine regions as a practical way to use hardened cheese and stale bread over winter, when fresh food was scarce in mountain villages. It was originally a rustic farmhouse dish rather than a refined one, but it was heavily promoted internationally by the Swiss Cheese Union from the 1930s through the 1950s as a way to boost cheese consumption and Swiss national identity, and it later became a symbol of 1960s and 70s dinner party culture worldwide. Each canton has its own preferred cheese blend, with the Fribourg-style moitié-moitié (half Gruyère, half Vacherin) among the most popular.

A traditional fondue uses a blend of Gruyère and Vacherin (or Emmental) melted with dry white wine, a touch of kirsch and garlic-rubbed pot — pre-shredded cheese with stabilizers, common in supermarket kits, melts unevenly compared to freshly grated cheese.