Fondue at ten: cheese, wine and the night after

The first snow is on the mountains, the evenings are drawing in, and all over Switzerland people are getting the caquelon out of the cupboard. Fondue season at last! Or raclette, or, if you're feeling brave, both in the same weekend.

And then at midnight you're lying in bed, your stomach feels like a mountain range, and you dream of a dancing Gruyère. Ring any bells?

Does cheese really give you nightmares?

It's one of the most stubborn myths going: cheese in the evening means nightmares. In Britain, someone actually tested it some twenty years ago, with volunteers eating a piece of cheese before bed. The result: hardly any nightmares, but some very vivid dreams. A small detail: the study was paid for by, surprise, the British Cheese Board.

So the cheese itself isn't the villain. The problem is more about when and how much of it we eat.

What really gets in the way of sleep

A fondue is rich and often reaches the table late. So your stomach still has heavy work ahead of it just when you want to sleep, and the body finds it hard to focus on recovery while digestion is running flat out.

Then there's the wine. It makes you pleasantly sleepy, but in the second half of the night it makes sleep more restless. Anyone who's been wide awake at three after a long fondue evening knows exactly what I mean.

Tea or wine?

And now for my favourite fun fact. At the University Hospital in Zurich, researchers actually studied what to drink with fondue: white wine or black tea, followed by kirsch or water. The result: with tea, the fondue left the stomach faster than with wine. Both groups, by the way, had equally little tummy ache. Tea drinkers, you may still feel just a little vindicated.

My recipe for a sleep-friendly cheese night

Eating earlier gets you halfway there. Sitting down at the caquelon at seven rather than ten makes for a more relaxed night, and two to three hours between the last fork and the pillow do your stomach good. Then ten minutes in the fresh air, which helps digestion and looks lovely in the snow too. And a glass of water or tea with every glass of wine, and the night will be much kinder.

Fondue is as much a part of a Swiss winter as fog is of November, and nobody should have to give it up. With a little timing, you can still sleep beautifully afterwards.

And if a Gruyère does come dancing through your dreams: enjoy it, there are far worse nightmares.