"Hello!" The server greets us and immediately asks, "Are you having fondue?
We are not.
"Okay, then sit where you like."
Funny question that seems to have no merit. It slips past our concerns, for we are hungry. It has been raining all day. It's cold. We need a warm meal and a place to sit.
We settle near the door (it is a small restaurant and almost every table is near the door). There is a steady flow of people coming in out of the rain. Each time the waiter greets a guest, he asks the same question. "Are you having fondue?"
When a couple says yes, he seats them out doors.
How strange. At the end of our meal, we ask the waiter why they have to sit outside.
His first explanation is because the smell is overwhelming for the patrons not eating fondue. I don't buy this. Fondue is Switzerland; Switzerland is fondue. Almost every restaurant serves fondue.
He must sense our doubt because the second explanation follows.
"It is because, I'm sure you heard of the fire where so many people were killed."
Ah yes. The night celebration turned into devastation in Valais, Switzerland. On New Year's Eve, a woman on the shoulders of a man with a sparkler set the ceiling on fire. Forty-one people died.
It's a whispered-tragedy and the restaurant with a low ceiling, no longer serves fondue indoors.
It's not a silly precaution, over-thinking or over-reaction. For I remember all too clearly, the afternoon when my family sat at the table for fondue. Everyone was present. Our one-year-old grandson sat at the end of the table in a highchair. The fondue pot was bumped, the flame disturbed, a spill, and a flame.
The table was on fire! Shock gripped us all. Little Max's eyes were alight. No one moved--except one son-in-law who'd probably been a boy scout and had better reaction skills than the rest of us. He grabbed a towel and beat out the flame.
I'm sure it has more to do with cheese availability than fire -fright, but we haven't had fondue since, and little Max is now twenty-two years old.
Ah, I remember. I made it a second time after the table fire, but the cheese separated and it was a fondue fail. I learned my lesson--go to Switzerland when you have an itch for fondue.
Comments