Cook This DIY Raclette & Fondu Party

Take the pressure of holiday hosting by serving up raclette and fondu this season. Comforting, cozy, and a crowd-pleaser, your guests will be talking about this fun experience for a long time.

Party Preparations, Tools, & Pairings

Fun, festive, & full of laughs.

First, you'll also want to choose a machine with good ratings for melting the cheese efficiently. I found this affordable version that has a six or 8-person option.

For fondu, ensure the pot has high sides to avoid splatter and adjustable seat settings so that the meat or chocolate does not burn. Two color-coded forks per person are usually enough.

Finally, an extension cord is an excellent tool, so cables don't get in the way. If guests will be stepping over the cord, tape it to the floor, so no one trips.

Wine pairings for raclette should be white wines such as Saint-Véran or Mâcon from Burgundy. I also love Crozes-Hermitage. A meat fondu should be paired with reds such as a Brouilly or Morgon from the Beaujolais region.

Fondu in rural France

Denis

If you have followed me for some time, you know that I own a house in the countryside of France. The little stone cottage doesn't have any immediate neighbors, but the closest one is the best one this American gal could ever ask for - Denis.

Denis takes up space, real and perceived; with his booming voice, he barks orders to anyone near him. He is a retired farmer and head of the local chasse (hunt unit) and, for some reason, has taken me under his wing.

I wait patiently for each invitation for fondu at his house. I have never seen the man eat anything other than pork, game meat, bread, and potatoes. Like how he operates his humongous blue tractor, Denis efficiently moves through the kitchen and points at what he wants me to do.

We always start with his homemade paté. I have never been a fan of this dish before, but whenever he hands me a new jar of his homemade sanglier (boar) paté to take home, I greedily giggle over the treat. Denis carves giant slices of fresh, crusty country bread from the next village over - he refuses to buy anywhere else from this one baker. His mother loves the riz au lait.

As we snack, Denis heats the fondu oil on the cooktop and disappears into the back room to turn on the fryer. Locals come and go from his house as if it were a bar restaurant. Some pop in just to say hello, others have business to discuss, and some are here for lunch too. Denis' house is a hub of the village. Eventually, he pops a bottle of red wine and dumps the hot oil into the fondu pot. We each choose two forks with the same color, and he delivers a plate heaping full of brilliantly red biche meat - deer.

I crave this meal just as much as I can think of any other. It's one of my favorite experiences in Bretagne. Denis returns from the back room with another plate full of fresh french fries. Sometimes his mother and I spend time together cutting them by hand, her thick fingers deftly carving up two or three to my one.

We get to talking about the price of gas, the wild turkeys he saw a couple of fields over, when the next chasse meet up is going to happen, and what's happening next for my home renovations. And then he'll cluck at me, winking, "Don't overcook that meat."

Lunch ends almost as quickly as it starts. He sometimes offers some puddings from the fridge. Otherwise, "Bon..." is the way Denis ends all conversations and events. We get up from the table, I help with the dishes, and happily waddle back home, wondering when the next invitation will come my way.