Welsh rarebit or Welsh rabbit ( or ) is a dish of hot cheese sauce, often including ale, mustard, or Worcestershire sauce, served on toasted bread. The origins of the name are unknown, though the earliest recorded use is 1725 as "Welsh rabbit", a jocular name as the dish contains no

rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

; the earliest documented use of "Welsh rarebit" is in 1781. Variants include ''English rabbit, Scotch rabbit, buck rabbit, golden buck'', and ''blushing bunny''. Though there is no strong evidence that the dish originated in Welsh cuisine, it is sometimes identified with the Welsh caws pobi 'baked cheese', documented in the 1500s.

Sauce

Some recipes simply melt grated cheese on toast, making it identical to cheese on toast. Others make the sauce of cheese, ale, and mustard, and garnished with cayenne pepper or

paprika Paprika is a spice made from dried and ground red peppers, traditionally ''capsicum annuum''. It can have varying levels of Pungency, heat, but the peppers used for hot paprika tend to be milder and have thinner flesh than those used to produce ...

. Georges Auguste Escoffier, '' Le Guide Culinaire'', translated by H. L. Cracknell and R. J. Kaufmann Other recipes add wine or Worcestershire sauce. The sauce may also blend cheese and mustard into a béchamel sauce.The Constance Spry Cookery Book by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume Farmer, Fannie M., '' Boston Cooking-School Cook Book'' Boston, 1896,

Variants

Hannah Glasse, in her 1747

cookbook A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes. Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food. Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (food), course (appetize ...

'' The Art of Cookery'', gives close variants "Scotch rabbit", "Welsh rabbit" and two versions of "English rabbit".

To make a ''Scotch rabbit'', toast a piece of bread very nicely on both sides, butter it, cut a slice of cheese about as big as the bread, toast it on both sides, and lay it on the bread.

To make a ''Welsh rabbit'', toast the bread on both sides, then toast the cheese on one side, lay it on the toast, and with a hot iron brown the other side. You may rub it over with mustard.

To make an ''English rabbit'', toast a slice of bread brown on both sides, lay it in a plate before the fire, pour a glass of red wine over it, and let it soak the wine up; then cut some cheese very thin and lay it very thick over the bread, and put it in a tin oven before the fire, and it will be toasted and browned presently. Serve it away hot.

Or do it thus. Toast the bread and soak it in the wine, set it before the fire, cut your cheese in very thin slices, rub butter over the bottom of a plate, lay the cheese on, pour in two or three spoonfuls of white wine, cover it with another plate, set it over a chafing-dish of hot coals for two or three minutes, then stir it till it is done and well mixed. You may stir in a little mustard; when it is enough lay it on the bread, just brown it with a hot shovel.

Served with an egg on top, it makes a ''buck rabbit'' or a ''golden buck''. Welsh rarebit blended with tomato (or tomato soup) makes a ''blushing bunny''. In France, ' is popular in the

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and Côte d'Opale regions.

Name

The first recorded reference to the dish was "Welsh rabbit" in 1725 in an English context, but the origin of the term is unknown. It was probably intended to be jocular.''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'', 3rd Edition, 2011, ''s.v.''
Welsh rabbit
and
Welsh rarebit

Welsh

"Welsh" was probably used as a pejorative

dysphemism A dysphemism is an expression with connotations that are derogatory either about the subject matter or to the audience. Dysphemisms contrast with neutral or Euphemism, euphemistic expressions. Dysphemism may be motivated by fear, Distasteful, dista ...

, meaning "anything substandard or vulgar", and suggesting that "only people as poor and stupid as the Welsh would eat cheese and call it rabbit", or that "the closest thing to rabbit the Welsh could afford was melted cheese on toast". Or it may simply allude to the "frugal diet of the upland Welsh". Other examples of such jocular food names are ''Welsh caviar'' ( laverbread); ''Essex lion'' (calf); ''Norfolk capon'' (kipper); ''Irish apricot'' (potato); ''

Rocky Mountain oysters Rocky Mountain oysters or mountain oysters, or meat balls, also known as prairie oysters in Canada (), is a dish made of bull Testicles as food, testicles. The organs are often deep-fried after being skinned, coated in flour, pepper and salt, an ...

'' (bull testicles); and '' Scotch woodcock'' (scrambled eggs and anchovies on toast). The dish may have been attributed to the Welsh because they were fond of roasted cheese: "I am a Welshman, I do love cause boby, good roasted cheese." (1542) "Cause boby" is Welsh ' 'baked cheese', but it is unclear whether this is related to Welsh rabbit.

Rabbit and rarebit

The word ''rarebit'' is a corruption of ''rabbit'', "Welsh rabbit" being first recorded in 1725, and "rarebit" in 1781. ''Rarebit'' is not used on its own, except in alluding to the dish. In 1785, Francis Grose defined a "Welch rabbit" icas "a Welch rare bit", without saying which came first. Later writers were more explicit: for example, Schele de Vere in 1866 clearly considers "rabbit" to be a corruption of "rarebit". Many commentators have mocked the misconstrual of the jocular "rabbit" as the serious "rarebit": *

Brander Matthews James Brander Matthews (February 21, 1852 – March 31, 1929) was an American academic, writer and literary critic. He was the first full-time professor of dramatic literature at Columbia University in New York and played a significant role in est ...

(1892): "few ritersare as ignorant and dense as the unknown unfortunate who first tortured the obviously jocular Welsh rabbit into a pedantic and impossible Welsh rarebit..." * Sir John Rhŷs (1901): "It is best known to Englishmen as 'Welsh rabbit', which superior persons 'ruling the roast' in our kitchens choose to make into ''rarebit'': how they would deal with 'Scotch woodcock' and 'Oxford hare,' I do not know." * Sivert N. Hagen (1904): "''Welsh rabbit''... is of jocular origin... Where, however, the word is used by the sophisticated, it is often 'corrected' to ''Welsh rarebit'', as if 'rare bit *

Ambrose Bierce Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – ) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and American Civil War veteran. His book '' The Devil's Dictionary'' was named one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by the ...

(1911): " ''n.'' A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad in the hole is really not a toad, and that ''ris de veau à la financière'' is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker." * H. W. Fowler (1926): "Welsh Rabbit is amusing and right. Welsh Rarebit is stupid and wrong." Welsh rabbit has become a standard savoury listed by culinary authorities including

Auguste Escoffier Georges Auguste Escoffier (; 28 October 1846 – 12 February 1935) was a French chef, restaurateur, and culinary writer who popularised and updated traditional French cooking methods. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Marie-A ...

, Louis Saulnier and others; they tend to use ''rarebit'', communicating to a non-English audience that it is not a meat dish. "Eighteenth-century English cookbooks reveal that it was then considered to be a luscious supper or tavern dish, based on the fine cheddar-type cheeses and the wheat bread .. Surprisingly, it seems there was not only a Welsh Rabbit, but also an English Rabbit, an Irish and a Scotch Rabbit, but nary a rarebit."

Extended use

Since the 20th century, "rarebit", "rarebit sauce", or even "rabbit sauce" has occasionally been a cheese sauce used on

hamburger A hamburger (or simply a burger) consists of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. The patties are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, bacon, or chilis ...

s or other dishes.

In culture

Winsor McCay - Dream of the Rarebit Fiend 1910-08-21

The notion that toasted cheese was a favourite dish irresistible to the Welsh has existed since the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

. In '' A C Merie Talys'' (100 Merry Tales), a printed book of jokes of AD 1526 (of which

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

made some use), it is told that God became weary of all the Welshmen in

Heaven Heaven, or the Heavens, is a common Religious cosmology, religious cosmological or supernatural place where beings such as deity, deities, angels, souls, saints, or Veneration of the dead, venerated ancestors are said to originate, be throne, ...

, 'which with their krakynge and babelynge trobelyd all the others', and asked the Porter of Heaven Gate, St Peter, to do something about it. So St Peter went outside the gates and called in a loud voice, Cause bobe'', yt is as moche to say as ''rostyd chese''', at which all the Welshmen ran out, and when St Peter saw they were all outside, he went in and locked the gates, which is why there are no Welshmen in heaven. The 1526 compiler says he found this story 'Wryten amonge olde gestys'. ''Betty Crocker's Cookbook'' claims that Welsh peasants were not allowed to eat rabbits caught in hunts on the estates of the

nobility Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally appointed by and ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. T ...

, so they used melted cheese as a substitute. It also claims that

Ben Jonson Benjamin Jonson ( 11 June 1572 – ) was an English playwright, poet and actor. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satire, satirical ...

and

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

ate Welsh rarebit at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub in London. It gives no evidence for any of this; indeed, Ben Jonson died almost a century before the term Welsh rabbit is first attested. Welsh rarebit supposedly causes vivid dreams. The 1902 book ''Welsh Rarebit Tales'' is a collection of short horror stories supposedly from members of a writing club who ate a dinner which included a large portion of rarebit immediately before sleeping in order to give themselves inspiring dreams. Winsor McCay's comic strip series '' Dream of the Rarebit Fiend'' recounts the fantastic dreams that various characters have because they ate a Welsh rarebit before going to bed. In "Gomer, the Welsh Rarebit Fiend", Season 3 Episode 24 of '' Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.'', indulging in Welsh rarebit causes Gomer (and later Sgt. Carter) to sleepwalk and exhibit inverse personality traits. A humorous appendix of anonymous authorship is sometimes added to the end of Thomas Browne's '' Pseudodoxia Epidemica'', debating the existence and nature of the 'Welsh Rabbit' as though it were a real animal.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Welsh Rarebit British cuisine Cheese dishes Toast dishes