The Fondue Fad Was A Scam, And We Ate It Up In The Cheesy '70s

By | June 22, 2020

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Left: A fondue party in full swing, from a vintage Mazola margarine advertisement. Right: Fondue set packaging for sale on Etsy. Sources: Pinterest, Etsy

There's a fondue set, '60s or '70s vintage, in a frayed cardboard box, collecting dust in many an American attic or basement. And there's a reason for that. Fondue, fondue recipes, fondue parties, and fondue accessories made up a global trend engineered by a cheese cartel with some seriously canny marketing. Americans who wanted a taste of the Alps in their modest suburban kitchens were completely seduced by images of attractive European mountain folk dipping bread in molten cheese. Was fondue popular in Switzerland? Sort of, in a "our government says it's popular" way. Was it popular in the U.S.? Well, a hell of a lot of people bought fondue sets, and most used them at least once.

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The dark side of Swiss Cheese. (thinkgrowth)

New inventions can come from strange places. However, few backstories can match the strangeness of how fondue gained international prominence, thanks to a swiss cheese cartel. That’s right. The communal pot of liquid dairy goodness made its way into your groovy era shag carpet living room or linoleum kitchen thanks to a devious swiss cheese conglomerate. When you really think about it, it actually makes sense.

How could simple old melted cheese and stale bread turn into a multi-million dollar money-making bonanza? The answer: a Swiss cheese cartel named Schweizer Kaseunion. The Swiss people would rather not talk about it “because they are the survivors of this Swiss Cheese Union, more or less.”