When I look through my collection, I like to breathe deeply the scent of glamour that still lingers about recipes for rarebit or Beef Wellington.
But dinner is about getting a meal on the table, and glamour is not always on the menu. Dinner can't always be a big production. Some nights are canned soup nights. Some nights are ham steaks and boxed mac-n-cheese.
But when you do enough vintage cooking, something glamorous can become glamorous and simple. You don't need to study the recipe and carefully write down the list of ingredients and scour the aisles of the grocery store to find them. You don't need to read the recipe twice and array your herbs in a complex mise en place before you begin.
You throw some cheese in a pot, you cut up some bread, you slice some ham (thinly) and voilà
Matt and I had a wonderfully satisfying dinner. Fondue was, after all, just a way to use hard cheese and stale bread, back when it was Swiss peasant food. If you have to be a peasant, why not a Swiss peasant?
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