Reminiscing about raclette

A raclette ready to go!

One thing I regret leaving France without is my own raclette grill. Of course the 55 kg of other junk I’d accumulated during my two year stint abroad and was attempting to hoard didn’t really leave me with all that much alternative…

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the stern looks and not-so-subtle mutterings from the balding Asian man charged with checking in my over-sized lime green suitcase at Frankfurt airport. With the zippers about to pop open, he slapped five “HEAVY: Bend your knees” stickers all over it and told me I was “lucky it’s Christmas”.

But (to get back to the point) raclette dinner parties are one of my fondest memories of the cold European winter I left behind and I’m disappointed not to have been able to have host the same parties here – now that Sydney has decided to switch off its summer.

The dish is a hearty meal designed for the sub-zero temperatures of the Alps and as a result is choc-full of fats, carbs and undoubtedly calories. You’ve got to keep warm somehow!

Raclette is actually the name of the cheese which is used and is derived from the French word racler – “to scrape”. Traditionally, cow-herding peasants in mountainous areas would heat the Raclette cheese round in front of a campfire and once it had reached the desired level of softness, scrape it on top of some bread. A fancy sort of cheese on toast, I guess (though don’t let a Frenchie hear me tell you that!).

Given campfires weren’t a possibility in my tiny Parisian flat up twelve flights of stairs, we opted for the modern version of raclette- an electric, table-top grill with several little pans known as coupelles to melt the cheese in.

As well as bread- these days potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and charcuterie (a selection of cured meats such as ham, proscuitto, saucisson, salami etc) are all served with the cheese, which is pre-sliced into squares that fit nicely into the paddle-pans.

Getting into the swing of things

Diners create their own small packages of food by cooking small amounts of meat and onion on the top of the grill. These are then mixed with potatoes and topped with cheese in the small coupelles that are placed under the grill to melt and brown the cheese. The cheese slices can also be melted and simply poured over food on the plate.

Either way, the constant movement makes the meal a social event with everyone passing plates, putting coupelles into the grill and pulling them out, and naturally, there’s plenty of topping up wine glasses.

One of the other reasons I didn’t pick up a grill, was that I was constantly told that the dish just “wouldn’t be the same” if a substitute cheese was used. And of course you can’t get raclette anywhere but France, so there was no way I was going to get away with good ol’ Coon.

Imagine my frustration when I popped down to Coles last week and low and behold, saw a locally produced raclette cheese in the dairy cabinet. I guess the French aren’t quite as exclusive as they’d like to think!

This discovery has definitely put a raclette grill on my list of things to buy on my next  Euro-trip.

Bon appétit!