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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Switzerland
Melted cheese with white wine in a caquelon, kept warm over a burner, into which each person dips bread cubes on a long fork. Promoted as a national dish from the 1930s onward, it is served across Switzerland in the cold months.
Traditional dish from Switzerland
Also known as: fondue au fromage, Käsefondue, fondue moitié-moitié
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Fondue — Switzerland
Fondue is the cheese dish most associated with Switzerland. In a caquelon, a clay or enameled cast-iron pot, grated cheeses slowly melt with white wine, garlic and a little starch. The pot is placed at the center of the table on a burner, and each person skewers bread cubes on a long fork to dip them into the cheese.
The idea of cooking cheese with wine is old. Until the end of the 19th century, however, the name fondue also referred to egg-and-cheese dishes. For a long time, fondue was an urban food in French-speaking Switzerland, since cheeses like Gruyère were too valuable for peasants.
Fondue became a national dish in the 20th century, largely thanks to promotion by the Swiss Cheese Union from the 1930s onward to increase cheese consumption. Regional recipes were spread, and the army included fondue on its menu in the 1950s. The arrival of the enameled cast-iron caquelon in the following decades brought the dish into homes across the country.
Each region has its blend. Fribourg’s moitié-moitié mixes half Gruyère and half Vacherin fribourgeois; the fondue neuchâteloise and vaudoise use other local cheese-and-wine combinations, and the dispute over who invented it continues among the cantons.
At the table there are customs: you must not let the bread fall into the pot, you stir the cheese in a figure-eight, and the toasted crust at the bottom of the caquelon, called religieuse, is shared at the end. To drink, the most common choices are white wine or tea.
Switzerland
Promoted as a national dish from the 1930s and served throughout the country, without a single-canton origin.
Grated Swiss cheeses (such as Gruyère, Vacherin fribourgeois or Emmentaler), dry white wine, garlic, cornstarch, a little kirsch in some recipes, pepper and nutmeg; bread cubes for dipping.
In a group, with the caquelon in the center of the table on a burner. Bread is skewered on the long fork, dipped and turned in the cheese. Served with white wine or tea.
A communal dish from autumn through late winter; in mountain resorts and refuges it appears year-round.
Your questions
It is treated that way, but it became a national dish in the 20th century largely due to cheese-promotion campaigns starting in the 1930s.
The Fribourg version, made with half Gruyère and half Vacherin fribourgeois.
The most common choices are white wine or tea.
Flavors of Switzerland
The solid chocolate bar that made Switzerland a world reference from the 19th century onward, with mechanized production by Cailler, Daniel Peter’s milk chocolate in Vevey, and Rodolphe Lindt’s conching in Bern.
Hard honey biscuit with almonds, hazelnuts, candied orange and lemon peel and kirsch, covered by a thin layer of sugar. Mentioned in Basel at least since 1711, it is the city’s most closely associated sweet specialty.
Large platter with several cooked and smoked meats and sausages, served over sauerkraut and green beans, with potatoes. It is the festive dish of Bernese cuisine, traditionally linked to the victory at Neuenegg in 1798.
Grated potato patty fried in butter until a golden crust forms on both sides. It was the breakfast of peasants in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, including the canton of Bern, and became a symbol of German-speaking Switzerland, even lending its name to the Röstigraben.
Dry, crunchy meringues served with Gruyère crème double, a thick cream with at least 45% fat. The quintessential dessert of the Bénichon feast, it is one of the symbols of the Gruyère region in the canton of Fribourg.
Chocolate cauldron bearing the coat of arms of Geneva, filled with marzipan vegetables and sweets, which is broken at the end of the Escalade celebration in December. It recalls the legend of Mère Royaume and the defense of the city on the night of December 11–12, 1602.
Shortcrust pastry tart, closed on top, filled with chopped walnuts coated in caramel and cream. It is the best-known sweet specialty of Graubünden, linked to pastry chefs who emigrated from the Engadine to work elsewhere in Europe.
Chard leaf rolls filled with spätzli-like dough and Bündnerfleisch (air-dried beef) or local salami, cooked in broth and milk and gratinated with cheese. Emblematic dish of Graubünden, originating in the Surselva, with as many recipes as there are families.
Puff-pastry dome filled with veal, meatballs, mushrooms and raisins in a creamy sauce. It’s named for the city and canton of Lucerne and is also called Fritschipastete, after the local carnival figure.
Dense cake made from day-old bread soaked in milk, with cocoa, amaretti, raisins, pine nuts and often a splash of grappa. Born from a desire not to waste bread, it is considered the quintessential Ticino sweet and every family has its own recipe.
Half a wheel of cheese held close to the fire, with the melted part scraped onto the plate and served with boiled potatoes in their skins, pickled cornichons and pearl onions. It originated in Valais and was presented as a Valais national dish in 1909.
Distilled from wormwood, anise, and fennel, green or colorless, served diluted with cold water and turning cloudy when mixed. Production began in the Val-de-Travers, in the canton of Neuchâtel, at the end of the 18th century, and it was banned in Switzerland from 1910 to 2005.
Rustic purée of leek and potato cooked in water and white wine, served with saucisse aux choux, a smoked pork-and-cabbage sausage. It is the best-known culinary specialty of the canton of Vaud and is part of its intangible heritage.
Layered cake of almond meringue discs and a sponge soaked in kirsch syrup, with buttercream, covered with almonds and powdered sugar in a diamond pattern. Created in Zug by pastry chef Heinrich Höhn, who advertised it in 1915.
A mixture of soaked rolled oats, grated apple, walnuts or almonds, lemon and milk, created around 1900 by physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner for patients at his clinic in Zurich. It gave rise to the muesli eaten worldwide.
Thin strips of veal sautéed and served in a cream, white wine and mushroom sauce. It’s the dish Zurich residents name first when talking about the city’s cuisine, almost always accompanied by rösti.
