Canada and Switzerland offer the best examples of how connective cheese can be as a national emblem. Cheese pulls threads and it binds. What do fondue and poutine have in common — or not?
The famous fondue, before its discovery in the 1930s, was unknown in Switzerland outside French-speaking Switzerland and Savoy. But the cheesemakers banded together and founded the Cheese Union. And it was precisely this united front of cheese producers that helped fondue into the caquelon and onto the podium of Swiss cheese.
This cheese recipe found its way into advertising and became a campaign. I know a few campaigns that went the opposite direction. Swiss households found recipes for fondue variations right in their mailboxes. The unsuspecting citizen outside French-speaking Switzerland was, in full public view, served up on a thread-spinning fondue fork of bread and dripping cheese. And naturally, the quintessential Swiss girl Heidi had to lend a hand with the promoting. At least in the imagery of the cheesy campaign. With that, the Cheese Union styled fondue into an age-old Alpine tradition.
And with that, the famous backed-up lake of milk and mountain of cheese could be elegantly worked down.
Who invented it?
Six thousand kilometres away and thirty years later, Québec lived through a remarkably similar story with cheese. Cheese knows no borders. The Centre-du-Québec region was well stocked with fromageries producing and selling the famous fresh cheese. So far, so cheesy. But then something got left behind: cheese curds, the leftovers from the curdling process that nobody wanted to buy. Those are the bits left over from the so-called cheese curd that went unsold. But the Québec cheesemakers were resourceful, and sold these leftovers in bags right next to the French fries. Enterprising — or bored — customers one day started sprinkling these bits of cheese over their fries.
But that was only the beginning of poutine. The fries went cold pretty fast. So somebody poured hot gravy over the top — the fries stayed warm, and poutine was born. Today this cheesy, potatoey mixture cannot be separated from Canadian history. Poutine is a national treasure, made in Canada.
What do Canada and Switzerland have in common?
Fondue and poutine.
All cheese. And the pragmatic path from surplus to indulgence.
