Fondue is a meal built around a hot pot of something melted or very hot, into which you dip small pieces of food on a long fork. The classic kind is melted cheese, often with wine in it, and you dip bread. There is also a pot of hot oil, for small pieces of meat, and a sweet kind with melted chocolate, for fruit or cake. You keep the pot warm at the table, and everyone eats from the same pot. The idea is Swiss and French; English just borrowed the word and did not translate it. It feels a bit special — a dinner party word, not an everyday lunch. People sometimes stretch it to any ‘dip it yourself’ hot pot, though a Taiwanese 火鍋 with broth is not quite the same thing: fondue is usually cheese, oil, or chocolate, not soup.