OWe are all familiar with those videos of wood fires, accessible on YouTube or even on streaming platforms, which give the gas-heated city dweller the soothing feeling of crackling alpine life. In an equally anxiolytic vein, alongside Patagonia fleece and indoor climbing sessions, melted cheese has crept to the forefront of our dreamy lives as plains mountaineers. Delivery app Getir recently announced a 50% growth in raclette cheese orders on its site between October 2022 and January 2023 compared to the same period in 2021-2022. According to the same app, consumers would have flocked to their devices two weeks earlier this year, with an opening of hostilities on October 24.
But delighting in this convivial dish is no longer enough, it must also be known. The creamy paste therefore flows just as much on our plates as on social networks where this cascade of lipids constitutes entertainment in itself, a kind of “raclettetainment” (neologism celebrating the wedding of theamusement and melted cheese). Type “raclette” in the search bar of TikTokand you will see to what extent this comforting dish has become an event: we celebrate the opening of the season in images, we document the first times like in this video entitled “You make your husband discover raclette”, we organizes the most improbable challenges (a raclette in class, a raclette in the metro).
We may occasionally come across a somewhat dark sketch by Blanche Gardin emphasizing the forced conviviality that can go hand in hand with this dish embellished with pickles, but, generally, the message exudes positivity. An almost ideal form of sociability, the raclette represents this means of weaving cheese threads around the table, while each remaining in his own pan. DJ Matafan, a Savoyard artist on the rise, has made a specialty of extolling the merits of what he considers a real panacea. In his music video Magic Squeegeehe assures : “When I feel unhappy, I eat raclette, when I feel so lonely, I eat raclette (…) and suddenly I have no more problems. »
Antidote to all our ills, the raclette as a metaphor would be this alchemical operation which visually transforms something hard (a dough, an era, a world) into something soft and reassuring. But to believe that this idea sprouted on its own would be a bit naive. To triumph here in the face of a Camembert in decline, the raclette industry knowingly uses a strategy à la Gramsci, named after this Italian theorist from the beginning of the 20th century.e century, which argued that any seizure of power (in this case over stomachs) had to be preceded by a conquest of the cultural sphere.
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