aught the restaurant-keeper
Julien to make a _Fondue_, or eggs cooked with cheese. This dish,
a novelty to the Americans, became so much the rage, that he
(Julien) felt himself obliged, by way of thanks, to send me to
New York the rump of one of those pretty little roebucks that are
brought from Canada in winter, and which was declared exquisite
by the chosen committee whom I convoked for the occasion.

As the great French gourmet, Savarin was born on the Swiss border (at
Belley, in the fertile Province of Bugey, where Gertrude Stein later
had a summer home), he no doubt ate Gruyere three times a day, as is
the custom in Switzerland and adjacent parts. He sets down the recipe
just as he got it from its Swiss source, the papers of Monsieur
Trolliet, in the neighboring Canton of Berne:

Take as many eggs as you wish to use, according to the number of
your guests. Then take a lump of good Gruyere cheese, weighing
about a third of the eggs, and a nut of butter about half the
weight of the cheese. (Since today's eggs in America weigh about
1-1/2 ounces apiece, if you start the Fondue with 8. your lump
of good Gruyere would come to 1/4 pound and your butter to 1/8
pound.)

Break and beat the eggs well in a flat pan, then add the butter
and the cheese, grated or cut in small pieces.

Place the pan on a good fire and stir with a wooden spoon until
the mixture is fairly thick and soft; put in a little or no salt,
according to the age of the cheese, and a good deal of pepper,
for this is one of the special attributes of this ancient dish.

Let it be placed on the table in a hot dish, and if some of the
best wines be produced, and the bottle passed quite freely, a
marvelous effect will be beheld.

This has long been quoted as the proper way to make the national dish
of Switzerland. Savarin tells of hearing oldsters in his district
laugh over the Bishop of Belley eating his Fondue with a spoon instead
of the traditional fork, in the first decade of the 1700's. He tells,
too, of a Fondue party he threw for a couple of his septuagenarian
cousins in Paris "about the year 1801."

The party was the result of much friendly taunting of the master: "By
Jove, Jean, you have been bragging for such a long time about your
Fondues, you have continually made our mouths water. It is high time
to put a stop to all this. We will com