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Fondue
Fondue is a dish of Swiss origin and is really a Swiss rabbit. Savarin's famous recipe for fondue reads: Take first, as many eggs as there are guests, and then about a third as much by weight of the best Gruyeres cheese and the half of that in butter. Break and beat up the eggs well in a saucepan, then add the butter and the cheese, grated or cut in small bits; place the saucepan on the fire and stir with a wooden spoon until it is of thick and soft consistency; put in salt according to the age of the cheese and a strong dose of pepper-that being a special attribute of this ancient dish. Finally, let it be brought to the table on a very hot dish.
This is not the pot of wine-and-cheese fondue most cooks expect. It is Brillat-Savarin's version: eggs, Gruyère and butter stirred together over heat, closer to a rich cheese scramble, and the proportions are given by weight rather than by cup.
- The ratio, in gramsWeigh the shelled eggs, take one third of that weight in cheese and half the cheese weight in butter. Six large eggs run about 300 g, giving 100 g Gruyère and 50 g butter.
- Low heat is the hingeEgg and cheese both curdle if pushed. Use the lowest flame or a double boiler and stir constantly; pull the pan off the heat while the mixture is still loose, since it firms as it stands.
- "Swiss rabbit"The book is comparing it to Welsh rabbit, the melted-cheese-on-toast dish. It signals a savoury cheese supper dish, not the communal dipping pot popularised in the mid-twentieth century.
- Cheese choiceUse a genuine aged Gruyère or Comté, grated fine. Pre-shredded cheese carries anti-caking starch that turns the mixture grainy.
- Salt by the age of the cheeseOlder Gruyère is markedly saltier, so salt at the end, off the heat, after tasting. The "strong dose of pepper" is not rhetorical: this dish is meant to be assertively peppery.
- ButterButter of the period was often salted for keeping and could vary in water content. Unsalted gives you control over the seasoning.
- ServingWarm the platter thoroughly; the mixture stiffens fast on a cold plate. Serve at once with toast or good bread. One egg per person is a generous first course, light as a main.
The recipe comes from Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's Physiologie du goût (1825). The word is the feminine past participle of fondre, to melt, and at this period it was used broadly of dishes of melted cheese rather than the specific wine-and-kirsch pot served from a communal caquelon that later became the Swiss national dish.