Today is national chocolate fondue day!

I’m almost embarrassed to admit this, but back in the 1970s, when fondue was a really hot culinary novelty, everyone I knew owned at least one fondue pot. And if they didn’t, the groovy couples at my college had dates at the cozy, intimate fondue restaurant that opened across the street from the most fab mall in Indianapolis: Glendale Shopping Center, which was so sensationally hip, it had a Magic Pan restaurant and a Houlihan’s.

I never went to the fondue restaurant. Why would I? I gave cozy little fondue dinner parties in my very own apartment! They were cheap, which is why I loved them. You could feed six people easily for about 20 bucks by filling one little pot with melted gruyere and emmenthaler (and lots or kirsch to make it more potent) and serving it with chunks of bread and for dessert, a chocolate version served with fruit, pound cake (Sara Lee was the best, because it was dense enough not to fall apart in the bubbling brew) and marshmallows. If I could get my guests drunk enough on low-budget white wine.

Today, I’m not sure I would even go to a fondue party if someone invited me. Fondue is to dining what Twister was to board games. In fact, a couple of my fondue parties ended — sometimes badly — with a rousing game of Twister. Right foot red! Left hand blue!

If I have to endure a night of fondue, I suppose I’d rather go to the Melting Pot, although you don’t watch the chocolate melting in one of that restaurant’s fondue pots; one of the servers told me that the chocolate is pre-melted “and comes out of a bag.” I don’t know if that’s still true and I don’t care. The only time I ever think of fondue anymore — other than noting that it’s Chocolate Fondue Day on February 5 — is when I see the collection of old fondue pots I have gathering dust in my basement. Sometimes I think, “I should clean those up and have a fondue party!”

Then I come to my senses and fon-don’t.