Swiss cookbook settles debate over authentic cheese fondue, offers other recipes

GENEVA - It's dinnertime and farmers are dipping bread cubes into a molten pot of melted cheese, an image of Switzerland's rustic mountainsides and garrets as iconic as Heidi at her chalet or men in embroidered vests playing three-metre-long Alphorns.

The classic fondue is still a mainstay of the Swiss diet and good fondues can be ordered in restaurants around the country. But recipes vary greatly across regions. A new, national cookbook published with the help of Switzerland's government tourism agency aims to settle the debate with the authentic recipe of cheeses and alcohols.

It says that only Vacherin and Gruyere cheeses mixed with Fendant wine and a dash of kirsch (cherry) schnapps make for the true fondue. The book also offers dozens of other recipes for relatively simple but delicious Swiss dishes.

"The question as to the right cheese mix for a fondue divides the country," according to "The Swiss Cookbook."

But the book claims its recipe is the undeniable classic, and Swiss restaurateurs seem to agree.

"That's what people like most," said Manuela Rossberg, of the Fondue House in Lucerne.

Switzerland was until modern times a poorer, peasant society, with a diet that lacked the sophistication of French cuisine or the fresh produce available in southern Europe. But the scarcity led to a variety of dishes making use of what the country has always been rich in: beef and dairy.

The cookbook tells you how to make over 140 national dishes, and those like the melted creamy cheese "raclette" or the mythical pancake-like potato "roesti" have changed little over the centuries. Also offered are desserts of rich Swiss chocolate and step-by-step instructions to prepare tennis star Roger Federer's favourite meal: Zurich-style ragout.

The book can be ordered from the Switzerland tourism website and was published by Betty Bossi, a Swiss publisher named for a fictional cook created in the mid-1950s, modeled on the U.S. Betty Crocker brand. The tourism website, MySwitzerland.com, says the cookbook is "for natives, for everyone living in Switzerland, for fans and friends of Switzerland, for homesick Swiss expats and for foodies, epicures and gourmets."

The book divides Switzerland into four food regions distinguished by their different homegrown vegetables and fish, meat and other specialties.

Cheese fondue, eaten throughout the country, is flagged in the section of the book about the Fribourg canton or state, where French-and German-speaking farmers alike produce the famous hard cheeses Gruyere and Vacherin.

These two cheeses must be mixed equally, and blended with some light Fendant white wine, Kirsch scnhapps and small amounts of cornstarch, garlic, nutmeg and pepper. More of the schnapps, which has a significantly higher percentage of alcohol than the American liqueur of the same name, is often consumed with the meal.

For the Swiss, a fondue dinner is more than a simple dish. Friends and family often gather for hours to slowly stir their bread on long forks in the cauldron of cheese known as a caquelon, which is heated by a small flame. Hardcore fondue fans especially cherish the hard, burnt cheese that collects on the bottom, which is known by French speakers as "la religeuse" ("the nun") and is sometimes scraped out at the end of the meal as a coup de grace.