[FOOD and WAR] ② Fondue in the War World Ⅱ

 

[Food and War] ② Fondue in the War World Ⅱ

 

 

 

 

Fondue is a Swiss traditional dish of melted cheese served in a communal pot over a portable stove and eaten by dipping long-stemmed forks with bread into the cheese. Nowadays, Fondue is recognized as haute cuisine deep dish designed for the cold winter in the Alps Mountain, but it was actually from reflection of poor shepherds’ lives. Shepherds did not have enough food except for stiff bread, firm cheese and some wine made in their grape farm in the fall. In winter, shepherds drank warm wine and ate stiff bread with melted cheese so that they could stand frigid cold. Here was the origin of the fondue. In 17th century, Fondue came to be the food that shepherds stood with coldness and made shepherds’ unity.

 

 

 

 

 

This fondue had played a role to keep Swiss army from invasion of Nazi in World War II. There is a reason why Switzerland came to be the permanently neutral nation in this story. Switzerland tried not to involve in any war and did not actually get attacked by Germany at first, but Switzerland had decisive will to fight against Germany if invaded. When there was an actual invasion of German army, 400,000 troops had been convened in seven days. Interestingly, before this recruitment, they did not even have regular army.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

German invaded within the border, but their air force was defeated by Switzerland. It made German trigger another aggression. Swiss army, however, was rather in retreat to Alps when German army started to attack. Swiss army launched a guerrilla war with resistance strategy on Alps. As Swiss army was in retreat, they blew up bridges railroads with bombs so that German and Italia could not cross over anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

Germany now had no reason to attack Switzerland because there were a big number of resistances of the people and they no longer had financial support and military routes, which were broken by Switzerland. Because they did not attack Switzerland anymore, the war was over between them. The movement in Switzerland called, as Spiritual Defense was the key factor to defense all the wars. Spiritual Defense, in 1930, is a political movement that defenses Nazi and Fascism.

 

With this movement, Fondue came to be classic food for Swiss people. As mentioned above earlier, Fondue was shepherds’ food made with ‘left over’ food in frigid winter. Swiss Cheese Union served Fondue while the movement went by.  It was spread as a part of the “Spiritual Defense“ exercise. Swiss Cheese Union also supplied cheese fondue in Swedish army. Swiss Cheese Union created a recipe for fondue.

 Just like what Swiss alpine herdsmen ate to strengthen their unity, Swiss army ate Fondue to save the country with “Spiritual Defense.” Since then, Swiss soldiers ate bread with hot cheese dipping sauce for comradeship

 Fondue is now a symbol of Swiss unity!