The Winter Olympics open tomorrow in Utah. Winter weather -- and with it winter sports -- has arrived in Western Pennsylvania, too.
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A grill melts the raclette and heats boiled potatoes for a traditional cheese feast. (Lake Fong, Post-Gazette) |
Raclette is the perfect cozying-up food, a Swiss dish with international flair -- a great one to impress friends while watching the Olympics.
Raclette is a type of cheese of Swiss or French origin according to Karen Novak, cheese buyer at McGinnis Sisters, Monroeville. "My cheese importer told me that the French raclette is creamier and smoother in texture. The Swiss version is denser and harder in texture and costs more," she said.
The cheese is semi-hard and served by melting -- usually in a raclette grill. It is extremely popular in Switzerland and is catching on in the United States. Novak discovered raclette three years ago through one of her customers, who had visited Switzerland.
"She told me about raclette and said it was a good social experience," said Novak. "I had seen the raclette grill in a catalog of European items and decided to buy one. It was so nice that we began to carry them to sell."
McGinnis Sisters carries raclette cheese and has a "raclette grill lending" program. Customers who purchase 2 pounds of raclette can borrow the grill for free.
"The grill is easy to use and cleans up so nicely. Our customers enjoy using it," she said.
The store also sells raclette machines and carries the French raclette all of the time and the Swiss raclette periodically. The French raclette runs about $8 a pound, and the Swiss raclette was recently $10.99 on sale.
With the type of grill used in the program at McGinnis, there are individual "grilling pans" where a slice of cheese is placed. The electric grill -- it can be placed in the center of the table -- melts the cheese. There is a grill on top where vegetables can be grilled.
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Food demonstrator Raye Coffey hands out a sample of Swiss raclette cheese to a customer at McGinnis Sisters Specialty Foods in Monroeville. (Lake Fong, Post-Gazette) | |
Raclette is popular in Switzerland, according to Jill Cueni-Cohen of McCandless. She lived in Switzerland for eight years and her husband, Stefan, is from Switzerland. "Raclette is a happening there. We would have it at every big gathering or when we had a nice dinner with guests," she said. "Also at fests it would be very popular. We lived near a large castle and they would have big fests there."
Cueni-Cohen said that at the fests, a large wheel of cheese would be placed on a heat source and the cheese would be scraped off as it melted.
The grills for families are different from the grills here. "It is usually a slab of marble on top of the heating elements, with spaces for little shovel-like instruments, which hold the slices of cheese. The cheese is then scraped off of these shovels with wooden scrapers," said Cueni-Cohen.
"But my husband has told me that this is the top-of-the-line raclette machine and that others may have simpler versions, particularly in other European countries."
Stephanie and David Sweeney now live in Hampton, but they lived with their family in Switzerland for a year. "We usually had it as an appetizer," said Stephanie Sweeney. "When you go into a restaurant, there is usually a big machine with a huge wheel of raclette and they scrape it off."
Sweeney said the cheese is mild in flavor. "Each person would get their own individual plate of cheese with two or three potatoes, pearl onions and gherkins," she said.
The raclette is also served with freshly ground pepper. All four of Sweeney's sons, Andrew, now 9, twins Patrick and Brendan, 7, and 4-year-old Colin, liked raclette. "But not the onions," added Sweeney.
Sweeney has made raclette herself but instead of using a grill, she put it in the microwave. "It is very easy that way," she said.
Although the grill is also easy to use, it is unnecessary. Like Sweeney, you can simply zap it in the microwave for a couple of minutes or use a conventional oven. In "Cheese Primer" by Steven Jenkins (Workman Publishing, 1996, $16.95), Jenkins suggests baking 4-ounce slices in a 450-degree oven for a few minutes until the cheese melts. He also suggests serving with potatoes, onions, pickles and crusty bread.
Jenkins writes that raclette is also good unmelted. He suggests serving it as a lunch snack or with fresh fruit for dessert.
Like many dishes, the origin of raclette is somewhat of a mystery. A cookbook that Sweeney brought back from Switzerland, "A Taste of Switzerland" by Sue Style (Bergli Books Ltd., 1996), explains that raclette was originally a summer dish created when a sheep herdsman in the Valais region cut a wheel of cheese in half and held its cut surface to the fire. As it melted, he scraped it off and ate it with boiled potatoes and pickled vegetables.
But another of her Swiss cookbooks, "Cooking in Switzerland" by Marianne Haltenbach (Wolfgang Holker, 1998), claims raclette was invented by accident by a group of winegrowers who built a fire because they were cold. As they ate, a piece of cheese fell into the fire and melted. The group spread the melted cheese on bread and loved it.
Related Recipes:
Raclette
Kase Schnitte
Kathleen Ganster is a Hampton-based free-lance writer.
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