In Search Of: Switzerland's Best Fondue

Switzerland has 26 cantons and four languages, but one dish units everyone: fondue. Bread chunks dipped in a pot of hot cheese has been a national dish since the 1930s.
CHRISTINA PASSARIELLO
FOOD & DRINK
DECEMBER 31, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204552304577116693697573180.html

Size is not Switzerland's main asset. If the country were a U.S. state, it would rank 42nd in size, right between West Virginia and Maryland. The drive between its two biggest cities, Zurich in the northeast and Geneva in the southwest corner, takes just three picturesque hours, past church steeples, rolling green hills and thousands of long-lashed cows. Homogeneity doesn't rank high, either. A melting pot of cultures, Switzerland has 26 cantons and four languages jammed into its territory.

But there are symbols that unite the Swiss—chocolate, watches, geopolitical neutrality and an astronomically priced currency. Chiefly, however, there is fondue. Bread chunks dipped in a pot of hot cheese, served in army barracks and at Sunday family dinners, has literally been a national dish since the 1930s.

It's a pretty appealing dish to rally around—already excellent cheese turned to gooey, molten goodness over a burner or open flame. There's a low-stakes challenge in spearing bits of crusty bread on sticks and swirling them into the mixture without losing the bounty. It's one of the world's great communal meals.

"It is said that eating from the same caquelon—or fondue pot—establishes friendships," says Verena Lüthi, who runs the hillside chalet restaurant Auberge de Mont-Cornu, near Switzerland's northern border with France, with her husband

And while the Swiss eat it year-round, winter is a truly ideal time for fondue, whether you're just off the ski slopes or dining out in the city.

Fondue means "melted" in French. Ever since people began preserving milk as cheese thousands of years ago, they have been melting it, says Isabelle Raboud-Schüle, curator at the Musée Gruérien, a regional culture museum in the fondue-heartland town of Bulle in the Fribourg region. The first written recipes for dishes resembling modern fondue date back to 18th-century French and Belgian cookbooks, but they called for imported Gruyère cheese, she adds, thereby making fondue Swiss. (Two variations—chocolate fondue and beef fondue—are attributed to a Swiss chef in New York in the 1950s.)

In the 1930s, Switzerland wanted to promote cheese consumption at home. Through the distribution of fondue recipes, the Swiss Cheese Union advocated that the dish be eaten as often as possible, says Ms. Raboud-Schüle. It also happened to be a handy way to use up leftover scraps of bread and cheese.

Forget about that neutrality thing, though. Each region in Switzerland claims to have the best fondue formula based on local varieties of the two essential ingredients, cheese and wine, as well as other elements that get thrown in the mix. Around Fribourg, an area in western Switzerland that rises between two big lakes, I ate a pure Vacherin fondue, instead of the mix of cheeses that is common. As if a half pound of gooey cheese per person weren't rich enough, near Neuchâtel it was served with a mountain of fresh cream on top. In the Valais region, an arc that runs along the French and Italian borders and home to the Matterhorn, the local fondue variety calls for a tomato coulis.

The Gruyères version has become dominant in recent decades. Often referred to as a moitié-moitié, or half-and-half, it mixes Gruyère and Vacherin cheeses (not necessarily in a 50-50 proportion) with white wine and garlic. Though it's most common in the Fribourg region around the medieval town of Gruyères, the dish bubbles up in Geneva and Zurich, where transplants from Fribourg have set up shop.

Still, many chefs are playing with the classic formula. Christophe Demierre, who runs a molecular-cuisine cooking school from his home kitchen in the Fribourg region, makes fondue as a mousse and a powder that are meant to be eaten individually. "There's still a sense of sharing because it becomes a conversation topic," he says from his kitchen.

Carlo Crisci, who runs two-star Michelin restaurant Le Cerf, north of Lausanne, cooked a cold fondue of small cheese balls in a hot potato soup for a special event. But he doesn't serve his modern fondue at the restaurant. "You can't really serve fondue in an elegant restaurant" because of the smell, he says. Meanwhile, Hervé This, a molecular-gastronomy academic, recommends adding a pinch of citric acid to emulsify the ingredients in fondue—a step that traditionalists balk at.

As with any dish that has such cultural significance, there are plenty of rules that come with eating fondue. The Swiss only condone drinking white wine or hot tea with their melted cheese—anything else is said to create an indigestible ball of cheese in the stomach. (The most egregious offense is drinking Coke or beer, but even water is frowned upon, Ms. Raboud-Schüle says.) Purists don't approve of ordering a salad for some greens with all that dairy. But cured meats are okay. And whoever loses their bread in the fondue pot buys a round of drinks for the table.

After a few days of eating fondue in five Swiss cantons, I was ready to break all the rules. I wanted red wine. I wanted vegetables. But the upside was, I became a master at spotting standout fondue. Start with the bread: It should be crusty and flavorful. The cheese shouldn't be runny, but should envelop the bread. There should be a hint of wine in the mix, but the alcohol should not leave an aftertaste. Neither should the garlic.

The Tourist Treasure | Le Chalet
Fondue restaurants line the main cobblestone street in the medieval town of Gruyères, between Berne and Lausanne. Look to the top of the hill for Le Chalet and its quintessential wooden dining room. (Opt for the cozier upper floor, under the dark beams, rather than the lighter ground floor.) The moitié-moitié is a classic, served with potatoes and thick slices of bread. (At 29.50 francs, or about $30, it is also one of the most expensive, but that's the price of being a tourist.) Rue du Bourg, Gruyères, chalet-gruyeres.ch

The Crowd-Pleaser | Café Tivoli
Smack in the heart of fondue's Fribourg heartland, Café Tivoli is a favorite of local chefs. But this isn't hoity dining. Big groups gather around steaming caquelons for hearty fondue made with perfectly aged cheese. There isn't a menu offered in the wood-paneled dining room—you just chose between a moitié-moitié and a pure Vacherin. The latter is served warm, not hot—because the cheese is so rich, the oil separates from cream at high temperatures—and comes with potatoes for a dish that resembles raclette. Cafe Tivoli is currently in the hands of the fourth generation of the Colliard family—meaning they've been serving fondue for at least 80 years, going back to when Switzerland was first promoting it as a national dish. Place d'Armes 18, Châtel-St-Denis, cafetivoli.ch

The Urban Transplant | Fribourger Fondue Stübli
Denise Ernst, whose parents moved the family from Fribourg to the big city, set up her own restaurant in a gourmet ghetto of Zurich 36 years ago. Nearby, there are reputable pizza joints, high-end Italian restaurants and a Japanese noodle bar. For classic Swiss cuisine, try Ms. Ernst's moitié-moitié. Five cheeses go into it: two kinds of Gruyère and three kinds of Vacherin, ranging from young to aged, to get the right mix of flavors. For a sweet treat, ask for pears and pineapple to dip into the melted cheese. Rotwandstrasse 38, Zurich, fondue-stuben.ch

The Refined Rendition | Auberge de Mont-Cornu
This charming chalet in the hills above La Chaux-de-Fonds in northwestern Switzerland is straight out of "Heidi." The house fondue is nuanced, using three kinds of Neuchâtel cheese (Jura, Vacherin and Chaux d'Abel) topped with savory whipped cream and cracked black pepper. The restaurant, in the Luthi family's 400-year-old house, also serves local meats and Swiss specialties such as rosti, a fried potato pancake. If it's warm, you can have your fondue in the garden overlooking cow and horse pastures. Closed until April, 2012. Mont-Cornu 116, La Chaux-de-Fonds

The Neighborhood Joint | Au Vieux Carouge
Located in a neighborhood of gingerbread-like houses and gourmet stores on the outskirts of Geneva, Au Vieux Carouge was founded by a husband-and-wife transplant from Valais 28 years ago. It is what a diner is to hamburgers—a down-home spot filled with locals who crowd around orange caquelons. The menu makes some concessions to modern versions of fondue: The Marseillaise is spiced with herbs and the Neu-Neu has pasta mixed in. The tomato version—the owner's favorite—is made with a homemade coulis. Rue Jacques-Dalphin 27, Carouge, 22-342-6498

The Quirky Canteen | Buvette des Bains
This lakeside Geneva eatery is housed in a converted public bathhouse that dates to the 1930s, with wood-burning stoves to keep diners warm. Don't expect white tablecloths—here you order your fondue outside and leave your name. A few minutes later, someone will bring you a bubbling pot to one of the long communal tables. They use local sparkling white wine instead of still wine, but it's actually a pinch of baking soda that keeps the dish so fluffy. The tools are more basic than at most places—regular forks stand in for long fondue utensils—but the crowds don't seem to care. 30 quai du Mont-Blanc, Geneva, buvettedesbains.ch

Write to Christina Passariello at christina.passariello@wsj.com

Melting Pots
Where to find exceptional fondue around the U.S.

Swiss Chalet | Vail, Colo.
Where better to indulge in a pot of molten cheese than beside the wintry slopes of a ski resort—in this case, Sonnenalp Resort of Vail? Located in the heart of Vail Village, Swiss Chalet's Alpine-style décor and an array of old-style fondues and raclettes transport you straight across the Atlantic.
20 Vail Rd., sonnenalp.com

Café Select | New York
In the winter months, the grotto-like back room of Serge Becker's sceney Swiss eatery is dedicated to a special fondue menu featuring four different cheese versions, plus raclette. For a fresh take, try the South of the Alps fondue with fresh and sun-dried tomatoes and olives.
212 Lafayette St., cafeselectnyc.com

Geja's Café | Chicago
This Lincoln Park stalwart has been in business since 1965, and is well known to locals for its extensive wine list, dimly lit romantic ambience and the city's purported best fondue. Geja's serves just one, classic Gruyère fondue, available as a main meal or as a prelude to a hot oil fondue course featuring lobster, beef and a variety of other meats of your choosing.
340 W. Armitage Ave., gejascafe.com

The Little Dipper | Wilmington, N.C.
Locals are in love with the convivial atmosphere—and signature cheddar ale fondue, prepared tableside—at this popular restaurant just steps from Cape Fear. For the cheese-averse, the menu features a large variety of non-fondue items as well.
138 S. Front St., littledipperfondue.com

Melt | San Francisco
The fondue at this quirky neighborhood café in North Beach garners praise for its beautifully thick, elastic consistency. Choose from Classic Neufchatel, Welsh Rarebit, Scrumpy Welsh Rarebit and Stout Rarebit versions prepared in two sizes. Most evenings, wall-projected films, open-mic nights or live music round out the experience.
700 Columbus Ave., melt-cafe.com

—Elizabeth Gunnison

The Truth About Angels, Demons and Antimatter

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520193,00.html

The Truth About Angels, Demons and Antimatter
Thursday, May 14, 2009
By Jeremy Hsu

An antimatter explosion threatens to level the Vatican in the movie adaptation of the thriller "Angels and Demons," but real-world physicists are unfazed by this plot.

The story features "Da Vinci Code" hero Robert Langdon racing to recover an antimatter capsule stolen from the CERN particle physics facility in Switzerland. Researchers first figured out how to create and trap antimatter particles at CERN, which gave author Dan Brown the inspiration for his story.

One physicist doesn't find CERN's unexpected publicity from the story upsetting. On the contrary, he's rather pleased.

"I always say that what Dan Brown did for the Roman Catholic Church in 'The Da Vinci Code,' he did for me and my research with 'Angels and Demons,'" said Gerald Gabrielse, a Harvard physicist who currently leads an international research team at CERN.

Antimatter is real, but it still represents a baffling presence in the universe – sub-atomic particles that are the opposite of normal matter. When a particle and antiparticle meet, they mutually annihilate each other and release their entire mass as energy.

This bizarre but intriguing reality has prompted plenty of science fiction writers to dream of antimatter engines powering future civilizations or starships, such as Star Trek's U.S.S. Enterprise.

"Angels and Demons" twists that dream of untapped energy into more of a nightmarish scenario, by suggesting what might happen if a relatively large amount of antimatter annihilated itself with matter all at once. A quarter of a gram of antimatter threatens to unleash the power of 5,000 tons of TNT and destroy everything within a half-mile radius – or so goes the fictional story.

The reality is that physicists can only wish they had so much of the stuff.

"If you take all the antimatter produced in the history of the world and annihilated it all at once, you wouldn't have enough energy to boil a cup of tea," Gabrielse told LiveScience.

Antimatter represents a rare entity in a universe dominated by matter, and scientists still struggle to understand why. What they do know is that creating antimatter requires tremendous effort, such as using particle accelerators at CERN to smash together particles at nearly the speed of light.

An occasional antimatter particle may arise naturally when a cosmic ray strikes Earth's upper atmosphere. But collecting man-made antimatter particles is much more practical for research.

Physicists have only slowed and trapped a small fraction of all the produced particles, in this case known as antiprotons. They use antimatter traps somewhat similar in concept to what "Angels and Demons" describes, with magnetic fields keeping the antimatter particles in a vacuum away from any matter.

"You need a container with no walls, that's the idea," Gabrielse noted. His former project, known as TRAP, successfully created and held charged antiprotons for months.

Now physicists face the more daunting challenge of capturing neutral antihydrogen atoms. The newer international effort, called ATRAP, has put together an antihydrogen trap and is working on a second.

"We are trying right now to trap neutral antihydrogen atoms which we have produced, but no one has succeeded in proving that they've been trapped yet," Gabrielse said.

Such neutral antihydrogen atoms could theoretically be clumped together, whereas charged antiprotons are repelled by each other. Whether an antimatter clump would annihilate with all the power of a small nuke without blowing itself apart remains an open question – and that still assumes physicists can create and collect anything close to a quarter of a gram of antimatter.

One part of "Angels and Demons" may have come true, although unrelated to antimatter. The fictional plot includes retinal scanners guarding a CERN lab, and the real-life CERN happened to adopt such eyeball security after the book came out, Gabrielse explained.

So the plot of "Angels and Demons" doesn't quite annihilate upon contact with reality, but the real-life mystery of antimatter may still trump fiction.

"Why the universe is made out of more matter than antimatter? We don't know the answer to that question at all," Gabrielse said.

Swiss banks ban top executive travel

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df9ce572-1a36-11de-9f91-0000779fd2ac.html

Swiss banks ban top executive travel
By Richard Milne in Geneva
March 26 2009

Switzerland’s private banks have started to ban their top executives from travelling abroad, even to neighbouring France and Germany, because of fears they will be detained as part of a global crackdown on bank secrecy.

The head of one leading private bank in Geneva said the growing determination of countries such as the US and Germany to tackle tax evasion and secrecy meant banks felt they had to take extra measures to protect employees.

“Some banks have taken this precaution,” he said. “If today I go to Germany to visit two banks I deal with...German customs can take me in and question me.”

The travel bans, which have not been brought in by all banks, have focused on those visiting the US, following the detention there last year of a senior private banker from UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank, as part of a federal tax investigation.

The head of the private bank, which itself has no travel restrictions, said: “Today if you are a banker from Switzerland going to the US you have to fear you will be taken in for questioning. I am thinking twice about going to America.”

However, four people in the private banking industry in Geneva told the Financial Times of banks bringing in total travel bans for staff, even for adjoining European countries.

“Private bankers aren’t even travelling to France. The partners are not leaving Geneva at all,” said a senior industry figure close to several private banks. No bank contacted by the Financial Times wanted to discuss the matter publicly.

The restrictions come ahead of next week’s Group of 20 summit where a clampdown on tax havens is set to be discussed.

Under pressure from other countries, Switzerland, which is estimated to account for about a third of the world’s $11,000bn in clandestine personal wealth, agreed this month to ease its bank secrecy laws and accept international standards on tax transparency.

From their discreet offices on a luxury goods shopping street overlooking Lac Leman, private bankers in Geneva reacted this week with a mixture of intense anger, at what they see as an unjustified attack by big countries, and concern about the threat to their business model.

“It is not really about bank secrecy; it is about solving an internal problem [for the big countries] by finding an enemy outside to bash,” said one senior banker.

VELCRO

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/14879

VELCRO: The Humble Origins of the Greatest Thing to Ever Happen to My Sneakers
by In the Beginning - May 13, 2008

Fifty years ago today, the Velcro® trademark was registered. Let’s celebrate by taking a look back at the beginning.

The Bur Trade

You may know the famous story about Swiss engineer George de Mestral’s 1941 hunting trip in Switzerland—while walking his dog in the mountains, he accidentally brushed up against some cocklebur plants, and by the time he got back home, dozens of the round, spiky seeds were clinging to his wool trousers (and his poor dog’s fur). What you don’t know is how hard it was for de Mestral to translate that natural stroke of genius into a manmade one.

He quickly figured out why the seeds were so sticky by examining them under a microscope—the spikes each ended in tiny hooks that grabbed onto fabric and fur and wouldn’t let go. But it wasn’t until 1952 that de Mestral made a serious effort to mimic the cockleburs’ hooks using different types of fabric. He quit his day job and raised $150,000 in venture capital, an enormous sum at the time. He also joined up with a textile weaver from Lyon, France—the only weaver who thought the idea would actually work. The pair’s first attempt, using cotton, was a failure. But nylon, sewn into tiny hooks under bright infrared light, worked much better. He dubbed it “Velcro” after “velvet” and “crochet,” the French word for “hook.”

Just Plain Stuck

De Mestral seemed to be on his way to a huge success, and large-scale production finally began in the mid-‘50s. But the fabric didn’t actually make it to market until a decade later, and when it did, it flopped. It was extremely useful but also extremely ugly—a hard sell given that de Mestral mostly envisioned it being used on clothes. High-end designers wouldn’t touch the stuff. The only group that found it appealing was the burgeoning aerospace industry—astronauts didn’t want to fiddle with zippers and laces while trying to get in and out of their spacesuits, and they also needed a way to keep their various personal items and food from floating away in zero gravity. (The association with NASA later popped up in the 1997 movie Men in Black, which short-shrifts de Mestral by claiming Velcro was actually invented by aliens and adapted for Earth use.)

By the time people figured out that Velcro could also be hugely useful on everything from kids’ shoes to watchbands, de Mestral’s patent was close to expiring, and factories in Taiwan and Korea were churning out similar stuff. Today, if you use Velcro as a generic term, you’ll make some Velcro executives very unhappy. The word has been Xeroxed, or, if you prefer, Kleenexed—the company would much prefer that you use the generic “hook-and-loop” unless you’re referring specifically to their brand.

George de Mestral, by the way, wasn’t just the inventor of Velcro. He also received a patent for a toy plane at age 12 and went on to design a hygrometer (which measures air humidity) and an asparagus peeler not unlike the kind that’s “As Seen On TV.”

Albert Hofmann, father of drug LSD

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080430/ap_on_re_eu/obit_hofmann

Albert Hofmann, father of drug LSD, dies in Switzerland
By FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press Writer
4-30-8

Albert Hofmann, the father of the mind-altering drug LSD whose medical discovery inspired — and arguably corrupted — millions in the 1960s hippie generation, has died. He was 102.

Hofmann died Tuesday at his home in Burg im Leimental, said Doris Stuker, a municipal clerk in the village near Basel where Hofmann moved following his retirement in 1971.

For decades after LSD was banned in the late 1960s, Hofmann defended his invention.

"I produced the substance as a medicine. ... It's not my fault if people abused it," he once said.

The Swiss chemist discovered lysergic acid diethylamide-25 in 1938 while studying the medicinal uses of a fungus found on wheat and other grains at the Sandoz pharmaceuticals firm in Basel.

He became the first human guinea pig of the drug when a tiny amount of the substance seeped onto his finger during a repeat of the laboratory experiment on April 16, 1943.

"I had to leave work for home because I was suddenly hit by a sudden feeling of unease and mild dizziness," he subsequently wrote in a memo to company bosses.

"Everything I saw was distorted as in a warped mirror," he said, describing his bicycle ride home. "I had the impression I was rooted to the spot. But my assistant told me we were actually going very fast."

Upon reaching home, Hofmann sat down on a divan and began experiencing what he called "wonderful visions."

"What I was thinking appeared in colors and in pictures," he told Swiss television network SF DRS for a program marking his 100th birthday two years ago. "It lasted for a couple of hours and then it disappeared."

Three days later, Hofmann experimented with a larger dose. The result was the world's first scientifically documented bad trip.

"The substance which I wanted to experiment with took over me. I was filled with an overwhelming fear that I would go crazy. I was transported to a different world, a different time," Hofmann wrote.

Hofmann and his scientific colleagues hoped that LSD would make an important contribution to psychiatric research. The drug exaggerated inner problems and conflicts and thus it was hoped that it might be used to recognize and treat mental illnesses like schizophrenia.

For a time, Sandoz sold LSD 25 under the name Delysid, encouraging doctors to try it themselves. It was one of the strongest drugs in medicine — with just one gram enough to drug an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people for 12 hours.

Hofmann discovered the drug had a similar chemical structure to psychedelic mushrooms and herbs used in religious ceremonies by Mexican Indians.

LSD was elevated to international fame in the late 1950s and 1960s thanks to Harvard professor Timothy Leary who embraced the drug under the slogan "turn on, tune in, drop out." The film star Cary Grant and numerous rock musicians extolled its virtues in achieving true self discovery and enlightenment.

But away from the psychedelic trips and flower children, horror stories emerged about people going on murder sprees or jumping out of windows while hallucinating. Heavy users suffered permanent psychological damage.

The U.S. government banned LSD in 1966 and other countries followed suit.

Hofmann maintained this was unfair, arguing that the drug was not addictive. He repeatedly argued for the ban to be lifted to allow LSD to be used in medical research.

He himself took the drug — purportedly on an occasional basis and out of scientific interest — for several decades.

"LSD can help open your eyes," he once said. "But there are other ways — meditation, dance, music, fasting."

Even so, the self described "father" of LSD readily agreed that the drug was dangerous if in the wrong hands. This was reflected by the title of his 1979 book: "LSD - my problem child."

In it he wrote that, "The history of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken for a pleasure drug."

Hofmann retired from Sandoz in 1971. He devoted his time to travel, writing and lectures — which often reflected his growing interest with philosophy and religious questions.

He remained active, going for walks in the small picturesque village where he lived in the Swiss Jura mountains, a stone's throw from the French border. He spoke at a Basel ceremony honoring him on his 100th birthday.

"This is really a high point in my advanced age," Hofmann said. "You could say it is a consciousness-raising experience without LSD."

Hofmann is survived by two of his four children. He was predeceased by his wife Anita.

Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.
___
Associated Press writers Balz Bruppacher in Bern and Clare Nullis contributed to this report.