My wife Yvonne has a wide-spread family. She was born in Weimar, in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany (before the foundation of the so-called “Deutsche Demokratische Republik” or “German Democratic Republic”). Like many, her family escaped to the West in the 1950s and went initially to join relatives in the Canton of St Gallen in Switzerland. Yvonne has maintained contact with that side of the family. All this is a rather long-winded way of explaining her relationship with the Swiss fondue de fromage, usually half-translated into English as cheese fondue.

First, it should be clear from the name that fondue comes from the West of Switzerland, where they speak French. Yvonne's family is in Buchs (SG), about as far East as you can go in Switzerland: it borders directly on Liechtenstein and Austria. In this part of Switzerland, they speak German.

I first tried to make fondue (several times) before I met Yvonne. They resulted in limited success to abject failure. Frequently the fondue curdled, and we had to throw it away. When I met Yvonne and she told me how easy it was, I wasn't inclined to believe her. Since then, though, it's worked well every time.

In October 2004 we revisited Europe after years of absence. In Switzerland, two of our friends served us a fondue on two successive nights, one in Zürich, the other in Buchs, giving us a good idea of to what extent our own efforts relate to Swiss tradition. It's interesting to note that the fondue served in Zürich is noticeably thinner than the one served in Buchs, which is closer to our own (presumably because Yvonne learnt it there). All the fondues I've had in Zürich seemed a little watery.

On 29 December 2005, Daniel Demuth (from Zürich) visited us, so we had nothing better to offer him than a fondue. In the process, we compared notes. He uses less of just about every adjunct than we do. Here's a rough comparison. The original was for four servings, but since I mainly make two servings, I'm including that too.

Ingredient		Groggy		Groggy		Daniel
		(2 portions)		(4 portions)		(4 portions)
Cheese		400g		800g		800g
Garlic		5 g		10 g		trace
Cornflour		13 g		25g		10g
Wine		200 ml		400 ml		250 ml

The choice of cheese

Fondue consists almost entirely of cheese, so obviously the choice is important. My experience is that only Swiss (i.e. cheese from Switzerland) cheese is satisfactory. Even copies of Swiss cheese made in other countries are not the same, not even from the nearby cheese producing areas of France and Germany. In July 2007, out of desperation, my wife Yvonne and I bought an Australian “Gruyère” made by a company with the incongruous name Heidi. The cheese tasted remarkably authentic, and I would be happy to eat it as a substitute for real Gruyère; but in a fondue, it was a catastrophe. The fondue should be very smooth, but for some reason this one tasted lumpy. It also lacked the typical fondue aroma.

What about other Swiss cheeses? It's perfectly possible to make a fondue just with Gruyère, the older the better; the best I ever had was a very old one which I bought at Zürich airport decades ago. Yes, you might think that you wouldn't be able to get a really good cheese at an airport shop, and that was exactly the prejudice I had when they offered it to me; but in this case the cheese was really excellent. I was told the name was “Gläes”, though I can't be sure of the spelling. I was never able to find it again.

Most Swiss fondues, though, add other cheeses, notably

1. Appenzell (up to 20%, gives a spicy note)
2. Vacherin (creamy)

One Swiss cheese you shouldn't use for fondue is Emmental: it leaves threads behind, making a mess reminiscent of the orgy scene in Astérix chez les Helvètes.

Fondue in Ballarat

We moved to the Ballarat, Victoria area in July 2007. To our surprise—I'd almost say shock— the choice of good foods is very limited, and there's only one shop in town where you can get good cheese, Campana's Stockade Cellars, on the SW corner of Mair and Armstrong Streets. This isn't the fault of the vendors: the population of Ballarat seem to be more old-style Australians than most, and they're not interested.

Campana's have gruyère, but no other Swiss cheeses. As I've noted above, it must be cheese from Switzerland. On the other hand, they have a raclette cheese which is not really typical: raclette is usually quite mild, but this has a bite to it which makes it taste more like Appenzell. We've found that a mixture of 75% gruyère and 25% raclette makes quite a good fondue—but this only relates to the cheeses available at Campana's.

Fondue in Melbourne

Melbourne is a whole different kettle of fish, right? Well, yes, but so far I haven't found anything spectacular. There's a stall in the delicatessen section of the Victoria Market which sells good Gruyère and also Appenzeller. I forget the name, but it's almost exactly in the middle of the building, on the north side of the short middle passage. There's another cheese shop opposite on the south side, but in my experience they don't have cheeses as good for fondue. Unfortunately the map on the QVM web site is pretty useless for locating the stalls.