Christmas Eve in Saint-Aignan

It's cheese day here, at least at our house. That means a cheese fondue, made using Alpine cheeses — French cheeses in this case. These cheeses would be called "Swiss cheese" in the U.S., but in fact all four of these are French cheeses. We grate them and then melt them in heated white wine until the mixture is thick and kind of stringy. You eat it by skewering a little cube of crusty French bread (or fresh, raw apple), dipping it into the melted cheese, and then sticking it into your mouth. You have to be careful not to burn your tongue and the roof of your mouth when you eat it.

One of the cheeses in this year's fondue might well be Emmental, which was originally a Swiss cheese but has been produced in France too for many decades, if not centuries. This is the cheese that we Americans think of as Swiss cheese. It has small to big holes in it. Another cheese in the mix will probably be Gruyère. It's another originally Swiss cheese but it doesn't have holes in it. It has also been produced in the French Alps for decades or centuries. Le Gruyère français sometimes has some very small holes in it, but nothing like the holes in Emmental. French Gruyère and Emmental are delicious, melted or not, but they don't carry the AOP (Appellation d'Origine Protégé) authenticity label that the Swiss versions carry because they weren't originally made in France but in Switzerland.

Two other cheeses that might go into this year's fondue are Abondance and Comté. Abondance has holes in it, as you can see in the photo above. It's made in the French Alps and carries the AOP label. It's made from milk given by local cows and has not been pasteurized. Abondance is the name of the region where it's made and also the name of one of the breeds of cows that give the milk used to produce the cheese. Between three and four thousand tons are produced annually these days.

Comté is another type of "Swiss" cheese that is made in France. It's produced in the mountainous region that borders on Switzerland north of Geneva. Like Abondance, it's made from unpasteurized (raw) milk and it carries the AOP quality label. The Comté I'm using in the fondue has been aged or matured (affiné) for at least four months, and the Abondance has been aged for at least 100 days, according to the labels on the cheeses. One major difference between these two cheeses is the amount of each that is produced annually. Sixty thousand tons of Comté are made every year. It's the AOP cheese that is produced in the largest quantities in France. It's also the Swiss-style cheese that I buy most often these days. I like its taste and the way it melts. There's always some Comté in our refrigerator.