Swiss eating in the Midwest

When we got the good news that friends would be in town Friday night for dinner, Bill suggested we have raclette. Raclette is both a cheese and a meal featuring that cheese, a meal perfect for using the time with friends for eating and having fun, rather than cooking and cleaning up.  That’s a winner in my book!

In Switzerland, where both the cheese and the meal originated, the edge of the round of cheese is heated and the melted cheese scraped onto the diner’s plate. In fact, raclette comes from the French word racler, meaning “to scrape.”  Also on the table will be boiled new potatoes, cornichons (small pickled gherkins), and pickled onions.  Eat a bit of each together = heaven!

Although I’ve never had a round of cheese or a way to heat it if I did, it’s generally easy to assemble the necessary ingredients: get raclette at Trader Joe’s, an enormous jar of pickled onions at World Market, pickles and potatoes wherever.  And since some years ago, our older daughter gifted us with a raclette machine for Christmas, I no longer have to ferry plates of cheese to and from the microwave and can sit, enjoying my meal and wine with everyone else.  However, this year, procuring the ingredients took on a weird, annoying life of its own.

I went to Trader Joe’s and forgot to get the cheese.  Ran a couple errands before I discovered this and had to go back to Trader Joe’s, only to find after standing and perusing the cheese section for long minutes, that they had no raclette; seasonal to them, I was told.  Try Whole Paycheck Foods, I was told.  Figured that would cost me, but…  Stopped at World Market for onions, only to find that the ones they had were flavored.  Didn’t think think vermouth flavor would work well.  More frustration and knew it was going to cost me more at WF.  Decided I was two doors away from WF and might as well stop and get it over with.  That’s when life improved immeasurably.

OK, the onions weren’t inexpensive and there weren’t as many as I would have preferred but I was NOT going to any more stores, so I bit the bullet and bought a jar.  Next, I found something on sale that I always look for when at WF and then I came to the cheese department.  Oh, joyous day!  I saw not one, not two, but THREE types of raclette.  And one of them was on sale.  It was, however, American, a raw milk cheese from Vermont, but considerably less expensive (at least on sale) than the other two, which included the traditional Swiss version.

Time for advice and the cheesemonger was unequivocal–this cheese was by far the best of the three. He loves raclette and had tried them all.  So off I went with the cheese and all my goodies, thrilled at a wonderful ending (and less expensive ending than expected) to what had started out to be a nightmare.

The meal itself is a doodle–get the machine out of the basement, set the table, chill the wine.  Slice the cheese, put onions and pickles in their own bowls, boil the potatoes.  Put all that and the salad out. Get ready to party.  The eating part is even easier:  put some cheese into the little, handled pan and slide it under the broiler.  When melted, take out, empty onto your plate and enjoy.  Talk with friends, drink some wine.  Repeat until all the food is gone.  Have some dessert.  Be happy.

The table

The ingredients (sans pickles)

The machine

The machine at work

The meal