[beware: food related - not for the faint hearted]>I currently have a small chunk in my refri. I bought it at my grocer's deli section and it is imported from Switzerland, available at a paltry $8.29 lb. This is why it's a small chunk.
I just looked up Gruyère at a local supermarket site. It costs £9.59/KG which according to my rough calculations costs around the same.
Maybe we just expect to pay more for food 
, good mature Cheddar costs around £7/KG but it looks like mild "value" Cheddar, probably coloured and definitely tasteless costs around £2.50/KG.I was going to say that under EU legislation we wouldn't be allowed to call cheese "Swiss" if it wasn't from Switzerland but then Switzerland isn't in the EU ... By the same rule "Mozzarella" is always from Italy but "Cheddar" seems to be more generic with Canadian cheddar on sale alongside English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish.
Raclette isn't used for fondue. In the alps, you get a heating thingy with a wedge of Raclette, some bread and potatoes. As the Raclette heats up it melts and you skim off the melted bit to add to your potatoes.
http://www.stud.unisg.ch/~mboesch/swiss-special/raclette.html Fondue is usually made with Gruyère and/or Emmental, white wine & kirsch in my experience, mind you, I have just looked up some sites for fondue recipes and I see the problem - some of the inventions I came across are quite revolting.
PS Faldage, I don't like fruit cake either. I do remember a friend from the US eyeing our Christmas cake suspiciously saying "do you really eat it?"
