Bring on the cheese: Our funkiest fondue pots
8.10.2018
Translation: Jessica Johnson-Ferguson
Last Saturday in Zurich’s Niederdorf I got a whiff of it: That pungent smell of cheese seeping out of the Swiss Chuchi restaurant. I’ve been dreaming about fondue ever since. For therapeutic reasons, and in time for the melted cheese season, I’ve put together my favourite fondue pots for you.
Although I love cheese, I don’t like fondue. Slices of mountain cheese for breakfast? Yep, I can definitely handle that. A tasty raclette from the tabletop BBQ? Gimme, gimme! But dunking bits of bread in melted cheese? Now that’s where I draw the line. If you insist on fondue, then I’ll go for a Chinoise or Bourguignonne. In spite of my fondue aversion, I browsed our shop for the funkiest fondue pots.
One-horse open sleigh
Finding a quiet spot these days can be trickier than finding a tourist attraction without a sea of selfie sticks. Faster, louder and flashier – standing out is the name of the game. Where did the good old times go? Like sitting on a bench and watching the world go by. No bleeping smartphones, screaming kids or honking cars. Just shutting up for a minute and enjoying the silence. Stepping it down a notch and enjoying the moment. What could better set the mood than a cosy-looking fondue set shaped like a sleigh? Bonus: It comes with a hot cooking stone.
I see you
Moitié-moitié? Savoyarde? With champagne? With morel mushrooms? With Gorgonzola? With tomatoes? There are countless varieties of the cheesy dish. And yet, I never warmed to any of them. I’m starting to repeat myself, I know. But I just wanted to make sure I was clear about my aversion. In any case, go for this pot and you’ll definitely know what you’ve been served. Nothing adulterated or diluted here. After all, when someone says cheese, they should mean cheese. #cheeseislife
On the slopes, get set, go!
After autumn comes winter. With winter comes the ski season. With the ski season comes the après-ski season. The après-ski season is... hmmm, good question. I only have very blurry memories. So let’s ignore my blackout and proceed to what’s essential: It’s fondue time!! As far as I know, there’s no such thing as a drive-thru fondue shack. For this reason, the girls and boys at Koenig put their heads together and strapped a pair of skis to this fondue pot. Thanks to this design, you can now enjoy the cheesy lava doing 90 kmh on a black piste... and you won’t even have to stop. By the way: In an emergency, you can use the fondue forks as ski poles.
A hot little oven
How cute is that? A fondue set in the shape of a miniature wood oven. You can choose between melting cheese or placing a grill at the top. So if you dislike fondue like me, this oven is quickly turned into an indoor BBQ. A particularly original and realistic feature is the way the oven works: It requires real wood to heat up. However, I fear that you will have to add wood quite frequently. Consider it a fondue pot and heater in one. Oh, and it will probably smoke out your apartment at the same time...
Barrels of cheese
A barrel, a bar and lots of cheese – that’s the following fondue pot in a nutshell. Having said that, my description is not quite accurate. After all, this wooden monstrosity should only be set up and used outdoors. Along with the fondue placed in the middle, there’s plenty of space for numerous glasses, forks, bread baskets, sauce dishes, rubbish bins, bicycles, jackets, bags, small apartments and a pirate ship. So you get quite a lot at a relatively reasonable price. Need a conclusion? I think the marketing slogan says it all: «Leaves nothing to be desired.»
Say cheese, please
This fondue pot and its four included forks are all grinning like Cheshire cats. But that’s as cheesy as it gets. This product was designed for melting chocolate only. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I like chocolate fondue. If you find it hard to go without your beloved emojis when you’re eating, I highly recommend getting this pot. Other than that, I’m not a big fan. It’s all a bit too cheesy for my taste.
To wine or not to wine?
Whether or not you should pour wine in your fondue is as fundamental a question as if you should put pineapple on your pizza. To get back to the first question: I don’t know because I don’t eat fondue. To answer the second question: It’s not really a question as such, as pineapple belongs to a pizza as much as football belongs to Bella Italia. Unfortunately, I don’t think this barrel-shaped fondue pot contains any wine. Maybe it will make your fondue taste of plonk, even if you don’t add any wine. Who knows what was stored in this wee barrel before...
Agent fondue with a licence to melt
Want to enjoy a discrete fondue with a small group of carefully selected people? Then this fondue pot is for you. It’s camouflaged up and will allow you to eat your cheese totally unnoticed. No more need to worry about too many forks piercing the gooey mass, discovering ownerless bits of bread or encountering uninvited guests. Camouflage, baby! PS: Should things get serious, you can use your fork as a lance and slam the fondue pot – with or without its contents – on your enemy’s head.
Holy cow
Grab the bull by its horns, they say. This fondue pot lets you do just that. Even though the design looks more like a cow, you need to grab it by the horns. There’s no other way. Unless you’re into third-degree burns, that is. In that case, your skin would turn about as red as the colour of this pot. Maybe the fondue even tastes better with the pot’s «fresh from the cow» feel. I doubt it.
Did someone say cheese?
Header image: Cheese as far as the eye can see – this also applies to our range of fondue pots.
Raphael Knecht
Senior Editor
raphael.knecht@digitecgalaxus.chWhen I'm not stuffing my face with sweets, you'll catch me running around in the gym hall. I’m a passionate floorball player and coach. On rainy days, I tinker with my homebuilt PCs, robots or other gadgets. Music is always my trusted companion. I also enjoy tackling hilly terrain on my road bike and criss-crossing the country on my cross-country skis.
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