Fondue comes from the French ‘fondre’, meaning ‘to melt’. Although it’s now associated with mountains and skiing, it possibly began life as a clever way to use up leftover cheese and stale bread. Once corn flour arrived in Switzerland in 1905, it was used to help stabilize the melting cheese and white wine into a rich sauce, perfect for dunking. Fondue became wildly popular around the world in the 1970s, when the Swiss Cheese Union launched a series of adverts depicting people partying over pots of melted cheese.
