By Christiane Oelrich

Switzerland - Eating raclette is as much a part of Switzerland as high mountains and delicious chocolate. The Swiss were not about to let the French take the crown for the biggest raclette meal.

Cheese scrapers have broken a record with 4893 guests at a raclette dinner in Martigny in the Swiss canton of Valais.

"It's a phenomenal success - what enthusiasm from the public and the scrapers!" said a jubilant Eddy Baillifard, who organized the record.

The raclette crown was snatched by the French last year. A good 2200 guests were served melted cheese in Saint-Etienne, and two weeks ago around 2500 guests.

The Valaisans were offended in their honor. After all, they have always celebrated themselves as the cradle of the true raclette and wanted to bring the culinary crown to Valais.

"We couldn't leave the world record for the largest raclette to the French ," said Samuel Bonvin, director of the myexpo exhibition center where the meal took place. Raclette is a cultural heritage of Valais and the Valais raclette cheese is unique.

In traditional raclette, the cheese is not melted in small slices in pans under a table grill, as is often the case. Instead, half a wheel of cheese is melted over an open fire or on a grill bar and scraped onto the plate. The name "raclette" is derived from the French verb "racler" (to scrape). The cheese is eaten with potatoes.

According to the organizers, 361 raclette chefs were on duty in Martigny to serve the 4893 guests, scraping the melted cheese onto the plates.