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Every Tuesday at 7:42 a.m. and 5:18 p.m., Tom Harte shares a few thoughts on food and shares recipes. A founder of “My Daddy’s Cheesecake,” a bakery/café in Cape Girardeau, a food columnist for The Southeast Missourian, and a cookbook author, he also blends his passion for food with his passion for classical music in his daily program, The Caffe Concerto.

Fondue Is Back in Style

The Food Network

The '70s have been called the decade that taste forgot. And even if you own a lava lamp, you have to admit there's some truth to the charge.

But there was one '70s fad that was all about good taste: fondue. And like many other hallmarks of the decade, it's back in style.

Thus, culinary catalogues offer all kinds of fondue pots. Some, like a copper version imported from France, selling for as much $300.

Furthermore, the Melting Pot, a chain of fondue restaurants, has grown to over 50 branches.

No wonder gift stores report that today, just as in the '70s, a fondue pot is a leading item on bridal registries. 

The resurgence of fondue can be partly attributed to the so-called retro craze but there's more to it than that. Fondue is back because it is an inherently communal experience. 

By its very nature fondue encourages closeness, conversation and conviviality, and when only two people are involved, romance.

According to legend, cheese fondue was invented in Zurich in the 16th century during a siege of that city when its population was forced to subsist on what little food was available, namely bread, cheese and wine. Some accounts, however, suggest that the concoction was merely the inevitable consequence of long, Alpine winters during which villages, cut off from each other, had to rely on those staples. One story, probably apocryphal, credits an unnamed Swiss shepherd who, shivering in front of his campfire, had the bright idea of melting his cheese and wine together in a pot and spearing it with chunks of bread.

These days tradition is cast aside when it comes to the ingredients used in contemporary fondues but some customs still apply. For example tradition has it that if a woman loses her "dipper" in the fondue pot, she must kiss the man on her right. If a man loses his "dipper", he must buy his host a bottle of wine. And anyone who loses a dipper twice is expected to throw the next fondue party.

Tom Harte is a retired faculty member from Southeast Missouri State University where he was an award-winning teacher, a nationally recognized debate coach, and chair of the department of Speech Communication and Theatre.