Cheddar at Kursk

This fondue started as an attempt on my part to break up the monotony of fondue. That's Fondue Neuchatel, the traditional mixture of swiss, gruyere, and kirsch that makes up the vast majority of fondue I cook and serve to others in my never-ending battle to make everyone around me obese. Now, let's get this straight, I love the Neuchatel formula, I think it's pretty much perfect, but for this occasion- Byron's birthday- I thought I should highlight his Southern heritage and make fondue more a la Americaine. Besides, his wife Carine's French and I honestly felt a little unsure of myself cooking the traditional Swiss mixture. I decided to go with a cheddar-beer fondue. A little bit of searching and I found the right proportions for a cheddar-stout mixture. Recipe in hand, I dropped by a convenient gourmet store on my way to Byron's house- European Gourmet, actually, off Brandon Blvd.

After selecting some choice weisswurst and some really tasty little dried sausages, I moved on to the cheddar. They had a seven-year old reserve Irish cheddar, of which I grabbed a pound. The English clerk/butcher/proprietress bobbed about in a wonderful blonde blur of Englishness. I actually could smell the moment she sank her knife into the grim white block. She did wonder what the hell I was using a pound of the stuff for.
"I'm making cheddar-stout fondue, actually"
"Have you the stout?"
"Er, no. Do you have Guinness?"
She snorted a little bit, as I had just asked for a Steel Reserve. Apparently, I was in for a stern correction.
After a brief bustle across the store, she offered me a clay vessel covered in cruel-looking Cyrillic lettering. Heavy steel clamps held a rubber stopper against its unadorned neck, as if in containment of radiation or djinn. Whoever made this thing had not seen fit to put a single word of English on any part of it. This was what a bottle of beer looked like in Mordor.
"Why doncha try this one, love?"
"What the hell is it?", I asked.
"Oh, it's beer. It's very nice. Imperial Stout."
I was beginning to suffer from what is commonly called consumption overload, stunned by all the wonderful things that were going in my big box. I didn't really examine the decision to take ownership of the dire stout. Certainly it must be nice, coming from the nice English lady, I thought dazedly. As I left the premises they offered to grill me some sausages. I've selectively deleted from my memory exactly how much money I spent in there that day.

At my friend's house I started assembling the fondue. The group in the dining room could talk to me over the counter, and I could join in the conversation. I always liked those counter things between kitchen and dining room for exactly this reason. I cut some cheddar, sampled it. "Dear God in heaven," I said to no one in particular. It was overwhelming. The stuff had more cheddar flavor in it than the combined yearly output of all Cheetos plants in North America. Somewhere Chester Cheetah was tapping a vein in anticipation. I hoped that the apple juice concentrate would mute some of that, or else it would just be too much. Somewhat tentatively, I opened the stout and poured out the amount needed for the fondue. In the glass the black liquid appeared completely opaque.
"Is that Worcestershire sauce?", Steve asked.
"Er. No. It's supposedly beer," I said, looking dubious. I held it up to a powerful track light. It became no less opaque. "It's from Russia," I tried to explain. I'm no great beer fan but I decided to try a taste. Urk. There's a reason I don't like beer. I handed it off to Steve, who is a genuine aficionado.
"Malt, " he said. "Chocolate. Something berry like. Complex. Mnh. Very dark."
"Dark as Stalin's soul. Does anyone have a laser pointer?" I wanted to check just how opaque it was, or if the light beam bent in its presence, which did not seem out of the question.
"What's it called?"
"I have no earthly clue" I passed him the bottle. Steve cackled. For all we knew, that bottle of stout was unique. Perhaps it was. Perhaps we had released Stalin's soul, liquified, bottled by Kruschev, as it were, to be delivered into our cheesy pot. I put my ear to the simmering mixture to see if I could hear show trials.

The final product was a desperate land war in the middle of Asia, a trenchline five thousand miles long. "It's like the Eastern Front in my mouth", I remember saying. The stout and the cheddar were just barely at violent, genocidal stalemate, broken only by hints of flavor from the substance dipped into it. Even the spicy dried sausages submerged themselves in this epic conflict. They were even Hungarian sausages, which made the metaphor a bit eerie. We all agreed that it was delicious, but had quite enough after a half dozen bites.

I've replaced the dipping substances in this recipe with the ones I liked the best. It was originally served with dried sausage, black bread, cauliflower, and apples.

Cheddar-Stout Fondue

lots of cauliflower florets
lots of broccolli florets

1 pound very good cheddar, aged at least 3 years, shredded. A food processor's shedder attachment is fondue's best friend.
2 1/2 tablespoons all purpose flour
3/4 cup good dark stout
6 tablespoons frozen apple juice concentrate, thawed
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 green onion, sliced on the bias

Prepare veggies by boiling/steaming/roasting etc.

Toss shredded cheese with flour in large bowl. Heat stout, juice, and mustard until steaming. Gradually add cheese mixture, stirring constantly, until cheese is melted and the flour has thickened the mixture. Scatter green onions on surface of cheese to break up that brown color. Put pot on hot pad in the middle of the table. Dip veg in cheese and eat.