| Somthing cheesy this way comes... |
People everywhere lately have been asking about beer and fondue, so here's Neil Miller's twist.
The humble fondue is alternatively derided as a laughable 70s throwback and then acclaimed as the next great leap forward in up-market gastronomy. Despite the vagaries of fashion, there has always been something very sociable about sitting around a warm pot eating melted cheese. That is perhaps why virtually every household in Australasia will have owned a fondue set at some time. Personally, I still have six. The national dish of Switzerland, cheese fondue was born out of necessity. When Swiss towns in isolated valleys became trapped by deep snow in winter, they had to improvise dishes from the ingredients available - usually home baked bread, local wine and dry cheese. Being clever folk, the Swiss quickly found that dry cheese tastes much better melted with a dash of alcohol. While the cheese fondue is the most famous version, fondues can be made with chocolate, vegetables or even meat cooked in oil. Fondue gets its name from the French word ‘fonder' meaning melting or blending. This describes the common cooking characteristic of all the different fondues. There are a number of arcane traditions and rituals infamously associated with eating fondue. Most of these involve ‘forfeits' when a person drops their chunk of bread into the cheese. Indeed, the very first time I ever read about fondue was in that classic historical tome Asterix in Switzerland. The severity of the forfeits in that story put me off fondue initially. It took a few years for me to realise the authors were using satirical exaggeration and that whips and wild horses were not actually involved in the eating of fondue. Well, not in middle-class Wellington suburb of Tawa anyway. However, even the real forfeits can be a bit worrying to the modern mind. In her now-kitsch classic book Fondue Cookery, Alison Burt described the best ‘forfeit' system of 1970: "If a man drops his bread in the fondue he must either buy the next bottle of wine or hold the next fondue party. If a lady drops her bread in the fondue, she must kiss all the men at the table". Traditionally, fondue is made and served with wine and kirsch (strong cherry brandy) but equally beer can be an ingredient and accompaniment. Though it may shock many, I do not recommend the use of heavily hopped beers in fondues because the cooking process will tend to exaggerate the bitterness. In this instance, more moderately hopped beers will produce better tasting results. That is not a sentence I write very often. To make the world's simplest beer fondue, start by rubbing the inside of the fondue pot with a clove of garlic. Pour a cup of lightly hopped beer into the pot and gradually heat. Add two cups of mixed cheddar and gruyere cheese and stir slowly until it melts. Next, add half a teaspoon of dry mustard for flavour and sift in cornflour slowly until the mixture is suitably thick. Mindful of those forfeits, eat carefully using cubes of French bread on fondue forks. A mild pilsner such as James Squire Pilsener or Limburg Czechmate would go brilliantly in fondue. Alternatively, a chocolate fondue could be made with a dark, decadent beer like Leffe Brune or Invercargill Pitch Black. The best idea is dust off a couple of fondue pots, invite around some friends and start cooking beer and cheese. That way, you can fondue party like it was 1979! Haiku Noted poet Captain Hops from www.beerhaikudaily.com captured the appeal of this culinary combination perfectly in just 17 syllables:
A bottle of beer,
Garlic and a pound of cheese, Hot damn! It's fondue! James' Beer and Cheese Fondue
serves 6 Ingredients |
Fondue and I have the same relationship with fashion. We each bump into fashion every couple of years - usually by accident - before drifting apart for extended periods of time.
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