When I was working in London a few years back,
in events/outside catering, each time I mentioned cheese fondue, my boss started talking about how it was "such a 70s dish, blah, blah, blah". Don't know to this day if it was only her who associated the 2 together or if it's a general English thing. In France cheese fondue is never out of fashion, especially when you come to winter months and ever more if you go skiing or boarding or "ski-bar" 
. I have recently featured quite a few recipes from Savoie in my blog(tartiflette, croutes au fromage): I used to go skiing quite a lot when I was a student since Lyon is only a couple of hours from the slopes. And yes, I know boarding is much cooler, but hey....
Why did I suddenly think about this dish? (Sorry R,A, and S I HAVE to tell the story) I happen to have a bit of challenging lunch to organise for next Saturday and out of the 4 girls coming round to my house one is vegetarian, one doesn't eat pork or lamb and one eats only very plain food! so that's what we are having. Followed by a tarte tatin (I thought about making the chocolate and frangipanne tart, but frangipanne might be a bit too exotic?)
Anyway here are the ingredients you need:
(for 3 to 4 persons)
600 g of cheese (a mix of Beaufort, Comte and Gruyere)
1 garlic clove
1 1/2 glass of dry white wine (preferably from Savoie like an Apremont)
1 shot glass of kirsch
ground pepper
bread for dipping (wholemeal loaf, rye bread....or baguette)
and a fondue dish (cast iron if you can. there's a great new one in Lakeland)
Rub the inside of the fondue dish with the garlic clove so the cheese will not stick
Grate all the cheeses mix them well together
Pour the wine in the foundue dish, add some ground pepper
Heat the wine up then add the cheese little by little on a lower heat, stirring all the time
When all the cheese is melted, add the kirsch
Eat straight away with the fondue dish on a burner so it stays hot
PS:When nearly all of the fondue is gone, add an egg to the cheese and eat on a slice of bread!
technomist
Its definitely an English thing. Fondue is still served in Germany and recipes get discussed seriously on their cookery programmes.
I think in the early 1970s there was a particularly irritating type of aspiring, thrusting middle class Noel Edmonds type of person who went on package skiing holidays and then rammed the fact they'd done so down everybody else's throats. They would wear ski suits back in the UK and irritate everyone - they did not ski for sport but because they had bought into an idea promoted by Martini adverts. Winter skiing holidays for the average person were well out of their budget: you may recall that the early 1970s were a very bad time for most people in the UK and the pound was weak. The fondue thing was part of this, and it has had a bad image ever since.