Only in Zurich by Duncan J.D. Smith

District 4 43 The Secret History of Fondue District 4 (Langstrasse), the Fribourger Fondue-Stübli at Rotwandstrasse 38 Tram 2, 3, 8, 9, 14 Stauffacher Fondue isch guet und git e gueti Luune! (Fondue is good and puts you in a good mood!). So ran a fondue marketing campaign in Switzerland during the early 1980s. The jury seems permanently out as to whether eating large quantities of cheese in a single sitting is a good thing – but it can’t be denied that sharing fondue with friends is one of the most convivial ways of dining. It really does put you in a good mood! Derived from the French verb fondre meaning to melt, fondue is a Swiss/French winter dish of melted cheese, wine and seasoning served in a communal pot (caquelon) over a small burner (rechaud) ; it is eaten by dipping cubes of bread on long-stemmed forks into the cheese. Whilst the fondue technique is first documented in 1699 – as Käss mit Wein zu kochen (to cook cheese with wine) in a book published in Zurich – only in 1735 is the name fondue attached to the recipe, in Vin- cent la Chapelle’s Cuisinier moderne . Even then the dish called for the inclusion of eggs. The first known recipe for cheese fondue without eggs was pub- lished in 1875. Despite the modern equation of the dish with rustic mountain life fondue was in reality first popularised in the towns of French-speaking west Switzerland. The earliest recipes called for so- phisticated cheeses such as Gruyère ( Greyerzer in Swiss Deutsch), which those living in the mountains could rarely have afforded. The introduction of corn starch (Maizena) to Switzerland in 1905 made it easier to blend the cheese and wine smoothly, and probably contributed to the growth in popularity of fondue at this time. Dur- ing the 1930s the Swiss Cheese Union (Schweizerische Käseunion) promoted fondue as a national dish, in an attempt to increase cheese consumption, and by the 1950s it had become popular in North Amer- ica. The Swiss restaurateur Konrad Egli is credited with first applying the name fondue to a variety of other dishes in which food is dipped into a hot liquid. In 1956 in his New York restaurant Chalet Suisse he pioneered fondue bourguignonne (meat dipped in hot oil), and then in the 1960s he introduced chocolate fondue (fruit dipped into melted Toblerones!). The best place to eat fondue in Zurich is much debated. A good place is the cosy and long-established Fribourger Fondue-Stübli at 122