By jkichton
I did it. I can leave Switzerland fulfilled now. I finally had Swiss Cheese Fondue! For the past three weeks, everyone had been raving about the fondue here. No wonder, since Switzerland is known for it! The only reason I could hold out for so long is because this fondue was paid for by my provider program, SIT. Therefore, I had to suppress my urges every time I saw fondue pots at little cafes in Geneva. Around town, a typical pot for two is about Fr. 22 per person. (Here they use the Swiss Franc.) But at the restaurant that SIT took us to, Le Basseruche, it was Fr. 57. So, this was some high quality cheese, and I knew that I would need to get my due fillings worth.
The meal started with drinks. At this phase, we were all still arriving with our host parents and everyone was introducing themselves. This was the first time that our whole program was together with our host parents, and it truly was just a medium through which we could all hang out in a low stress environment, and reflect on what has happened so far and how far we have come as a group. I myself enjoyed this opportunity to meet my friends host parents and to introduce my own! As an aside, my host mom’s name is Carin. Originally a Swede, she moved to Switzerland in 1979 and speaks Swedish, English, and French. She has a really cool daughter who is getting her masters in Human Rights (in Sweden), which is right up my alley so I am looking forward to having many interesting conversations with her. Carin also has a partner, Noel, as I started in a previous blog post. He is from Wales and is so super cute and stereotypically British. He’s very funny and knows too much about history. Lastly, Carin writes me sweet notes and leaves them out for me in the mornings. I am so glad I got her as my host mom!
After everyone had arrived, we moved into a back room in the restaurant and were served viande séchée as a starter. This was part of the whole Swiss Fondue system. Viande séchée literally means dried meat, and this is exactly what it was. It sounds gross, but it was really good. They served very finely sliced dried beef, brown and white crusty bread, with little pearl onions and mini pickles to garnish. All of us were so hungry, and we did not know how much food we were going to be served once the fondue phase started. Therefore, we stuffed our little faces full. During this time, people were still mingling and all of the host parents were talking with one another. But all of the kids were gathered around in groups sitting in the corners away from the parents. It was like a typical family reunion; parents do their thing and talk about adult stuff and kids do their thing and talk about kid stuff. Then, it was time to sit down at our tables inside the actual restaurant!
Finally, fondue! This Swiss Fondue did not contain any typical, ‘Swiss Cheese’. It was instead a bubbly, gooey, melting pot of Gruyére, Vacherin, and… another French cheese that I do not remember the name of. Anyway, the fondue was crème in color, and not very thick when stirred. With the fondue, we were served big pieces of crusty bread. My mom however, showed me the correct way to do it: You first break up the bread into small pieces and then grind some pepper in one corner of your plate. Then you use your fondue fork and stab a piece of bread, stick it in the pot, and stir the cheese with your bread. After a few stirs, take it out, and twirl it around a few times in the air because the cheese is literally boiling still. The cheese will harden within seconds, and voila! Dip it in the pepper then shove that bad boy in your mouth! It tasted like cheese you would find on a really authentic, Italian, pizza! The fondue had a very strong white wine taste, however it gave it a good flavor. The addition of the wine made it like… a deeper, more complex flavor which I really enjoyed. Therefore, if you show a Swiss alcohol, they will immediately think of fondue!