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Some Kitchen Kinks: Fondue
Cheese Fondue No. II. 1½ cupsful of hot milk. 1½ cupsful of soft, stale bread crumbs. 1⅛ tablespoonful of butter. 4 eggs. 1/3 of a pound of cheese (1½ cupsful of grated cheese or 1 cupful of cheese cut into small pieces). ½ teaspoonful of salt.
Prepare as in previous recipe.
The protein value of this dish is equal to that of 1% pounds of potato and beef, the fuel value, however, being much in excess of these. Calculated cost, 22 cents. One- In making either of these fondues, rice or other cereals may be substituted for bread crumbs. fourth cupful of rice measured before cooking, or one cupful of cooked rice or other cereals, should be used.
A comparison of the recipes for the two fondues may indicate the general principle on which the recipes in this bulletin have been worked out. The second recipe is one commonly found in cookbooks. In the first one, the butter has been omitted and water substituted for milk and the amount of cheese is slightly increased. This makes a somewhat cheaper dish and one which is less rich because its percentage of fat is not so great.
For this reason it is easier to adjust to the ordinary bill of fare. A dish in which there is combined cheese with its large percentage of fat, butter with its 85 per cent of fat, and eggs with their 10 per cent of fat, is too rich to admit of being combined rationally with other fatty dishes. It therefore limits the number of dishes that may be served with it, making milk soup, for example, or dishes containing white sauce or those containing much butter or oil seem out of place. The omission of butter from the ordinary recipes and the substitution of water or skimmed milk for whole milk may perhaps be the means of making cheese dishes more wholesome and more generally acceptable.
Another advantage of omitting butter from cheese dishes and of substituting water or skimmed milk for whole milk is that it makes it possible to increase the amount of cheese without making the dish too rich.
This is of advantage to those who like the flavor of cheese, and also, because it tends to increase the tissue forming value of the dish, particularly if skimmed milk is used rather than water.
Boiled Fondue. 1½ cupsful of bread crumbs. 1½ cupsful of milk. 1½ cupsful of cheese cut into 1 2 6 small pieces. egg. tablespoonsful of butter. ounces of crackers.
Soak the bread in the milk. Melt the butter and add the cheese. When the cheese has melted add the soaked crumbs, the eggs slightly beaten, and the seasoning. Cook a short time and serve on toasted crackers.
Since it consists of essentially the same ingredients, the food value of this dish is obviously much the same as that of fondue made in other ways.
Rice Fondue. 1 cupful of boiled rice. 2 tablespoonsful of milk. 4 eggs. 1 cupful of grated cheese. 1/2 teaspoonful of salt. 1 teaspoonful of some commercial meat sauce, or similar flavoring.
These are American baked cheese fondues in the old sense: a soufflé-like pudding of cheese, crumbs, milk and eggs, not melted cheese in a communal pot. The instructions assume you have just read the first recipe in the series, so a few working notes are needed.
- How they are actually cookedThe method is not reprinted on this page; the recipe only says "Prepare as in previous recipe." Reconstructed, it amounts to soaking the crumbs in the hot milk, adding butter, cheese and salt, stirring in the beaten eggs, and baking in a buttered dish in a moderate oven until the centre is just set. No temperature or time is given in the original.
- The hingeThis is an egg custard carrying melted cheese, and it curdles and weeps if pushed. Take it out while the middle still trembles slightly; standing in a pan of hot water in the oven is the traditional insurance against a grainy, oily result.
- The cheese"Cheese" in a bulletin of this kind would ordinarily mean plain factory cheddar, aged enough to have flavour. A third of a pound is a little over 5 oz. The recipe allows either grated or small cubes; grating gives a smoother set. Pre-shredded cheese carries anti-caking starch and behaves less well.
- The saltOne and a half teaspoons of salt for a dish built on 5 oz of cheese is high by current taste, and may be a slip for a half teaspoon, which is what the rice fondue below calls for. Start with half and correct the mixture before the eggs go in.
- Bread crumbsSoft stale crumbs means torn from the inside of a day-old loaf, not dry packaged crumbs, which absorb far more liquid. If you substitute rice or another cereal as directed, use a cupful cooked.
- Commercial meat sauceIn the rice fondue this means a bottled savoury sauce of the Worcestershire or mushroom-ketchup type, used for the same umami lift a dash of soy would give now. A teaspoon is enough to season a cupful of cheese.
- Skim milkThe bulletin's argument for water or skimmed milk in place of whole milk still works, and skim is easy to come by now. The dish will be leaner; expect some difference in texture as well as in richness.
- YieldEach of these makes a light main dish for three or four, or a supper course for six. Serve as soon as it comes out of the oven, with something acid alongside rather than another buttery dish.
The wording gives this away as a government cookery bulletin rather than a cookbook: it prices the dish at 22 cents, compares its protein with that of potato and beef, and reasons out loud about fat percentages. Cheese was promoted hard as a domestic meat substitute in the United States in the 1910s, and "fondue" was the standard name for a baked cheese-and-crumb pudding in English and American cookery long before the Swiss caquelon and long forks became familiar; Eliza Acton and her successors use it that way. What is unusual here is the editorial frame. The writer sets a conventional cookbook recipe beside a leaner reworking, drops the butter, swaps water or skim milk for whole, and then defends the change on the grounds that a dish combining cheese, butter and eggs is too fatty to sit comfortably in a whole day's menu. That is the new domestic science speaking, treating a recipe as a calculation to be balanced against the rest of the bill of fare.