24 | November | 2013 | Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss

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Cheese Fondue

It was decided a cheese fondue would be an ideal evening meal yesterday evening, due to low temperatures outside and me not wanting to cook something that would take hours of my time. I am particularly proud of the caquelon, the bowl for preparing and cooking the fondue. It was in the family before I even met Mr. Swiss and must be now at least fifty years old if not more. Old is gold – I tell myself every time I look into the mirror.

Having confidence to make a cheese fondue is not difficult. Of course I know how it works and naturally my cheese fondues are always a perfect masterpiece of Swiss inventive cooking. I am married to a William Tell lookalike. The crossbow might be missing and he has never tried to shoot an apple off the head of our sons, but today he voted in one of our numerous elections: not only for himself, but for me and my elder son. He just filled out the forms and we signed. Not that we have infinite trust in what he decides, but quickly looking at the problems of our country I decided I could let him loose on these decisions. OK, to be honest two of the items on the list were a little over my head, financially compensating mothers that look after their children at home instead of placing them in care to enable them to go to work and something called one in twelve (I think that one was something to do with keeping wages lower for those that earn too much like big bosses in the finance world). They were turned down in any case, so why bother.

The third idea was to put up our motorway costs to one hundred Swiss francs per year. All brave car driving citizens in Switzerland that take their cars for a ride on the motorway have to pay forty Swiss francs per year and some bright spark decided that this was too cheap and one hundred francs would be more appropriate. Who this bright spark was I do not know, but he managed to collect enough signatures for his brain dead proposal to send us all to vote for it. Needless to say it was turned down, common sense won again and so we are still paying our forty francs per year.

To return to the cheese fondue: of course I know how to make a cheese fondue with a perfect result. You go to the local supermarket, buy a packet containing the ready mixed ingredients sealed in aluminium foil. Put the caquelon on the cooking range but first of all rub it out with a cut garlic clove. The solid mass from the packet is then put in the caquelon, keep stirring until it turns into a liquid smelling strongly of cheese and wine and then place it on the little burner on the table.

In the meanwhile you have cut some fresh bread into small cubes (I always use a baguette for this purpose) and then you pierce a bread cube with a fondue fork and dip it into the bubbling liquid, turning it constantly to coat with bread with a fine layer of cheese. I would recommend a quick blow on it before eating. Hot cheese tends to burn the mouth if you are not careful.

I hear you saying where is the creative vein? Just melt a ready mixture: any fool can do that. Of course, but not any fool produces a perfect fondue when they make it from A to Z themself. You have to fill the caquelon with white wine, take grated cheese of the sort you want, and put it into the warmed wine to melt and also adding a little kirsch to the liquid for flavour. You think that is all? How is the melted cheese going to form a super cheese sauce without something to bind it and that is where the problem lies. Generally you add a spoonful of cornflour to the warm wine when mixing the cheese in and this is the secret for a wonderfully smooth creamy sauce. How many Swiss housewives have thrown the fondue away, emptied it into the sink, cried Swiss crocodile tears, only to find that it did not mix and the result was a clump of melted cheese sinking to the bottom of the caquelon surrounded by a milky white liquid – the wine. This can be especially embarrassing if you have invited people to join in. Eating fondue alone would be almost suicidal, you have to be surrounded by family and friends, but what is the point when the fondue is a cause for depression and tears.

For this reason my fondues are always perfect. No tears at the table, no tantrums in the kitchen and no disappointment or talk from the family about Mrs. Angloswiss not being capable of serving a Swiss cheese fondue. I buy mine ready prepared in the Swiss supermarket, have never been disappointed. Yes my name is Mrs. Angloswiss and I do not make my own fondue. The confessions of a Swiss cook.

I could have told you all how I am a perfect writer, an icon with the written word. The blogger to beat all bloggers, sitting in the shadows waiting to be discovered, my chances of winning a Pulitzer/Nobel/Man Booker prize being not recognised: perhaps through jealousy, through being too good to be true – who knows?.It remains that my talent is still unrecognised, but I can make a pretty good, perfect, Swiss cheese fondue. There are no disappointments at the table and the plates and caquelon are emptied.

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