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Contents 1 Rarebit versus Rabbit: The Name Debate (DRAFT) 2 Variations of Ingredients and Preparation 3 Chronology of Significant Recipes 4 References (I need to fix these up a bit) 5 Musings, Mumblings, and POV Ramblings (not to be included in final article)

[edit] Rarebit versus Rabbit: The Name Debate (DRAFT)

The exact origin of either name is unknown, although the debate over which term is correct has kept pundits and journalists hopping mad since at least the late 19th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known recorded use of the term “Welsh rabbit” appears in 1725.^[1] The term “Welch rarebit” appears in a London newspaper in 1781. The use of “c” rather than “s” in “Welsh” occurs in some spellings, most often prior to the 19th century.^[2] In Francis Grose’s 1785, A classical dictionary of the vulgar tongue, he gives both terms: “Rabbit, a Welch rabbit, bread and cheefe toafted, i.e. a Welch rare bit.”^[3]

The irony of using “rabbit” for the name of a cheese dish has ensured the dish's place in popular culture for more than two centuries. In 1781, the London Courant and Westminster Chronicle gives an account of a debate held during a committee meeting within the House of Commons, when the dish was used to prove a point about “contradictory doctrine.” According to the paper's report, one participant argued that, “a Welch rabbit (i.e. rarebit) was, the very contrary thing of what it meant.”^[4] Puns and jokes about the name were also popular. In the following example published in the North Wales Chronicle in 1829, the joke is not only about what is commonly understood to be a “rabbit,” but also what it means to be “Welsh:”

Colonel A—baiting for the first time in his life at a Welsh inn, thought he would order for his dinner, a dish which must be in perfection in its own country, viz. a Welsh rabbit. The dinner hour arrived, and the Colonel lifting up the cover of the dish him, exclaimed in angry astonishment to the waiter, upon beholding a large, dry looking fleshy animal before him, “What the d—l d’ye call this a Welsh rabbit?” “Why, noo, noo, Sir!” replied the man, perfectly cool, and unconscious of the error, “Noo it certainly an’t exactly a Welsh rabbit, but ‘tis a Monmouthshire one."^[5]

Although both terms continued in use, the term Welsh rarebit gained in popularity during the course of the 19th century, even beginning to appear in dictionaries. This preference elicited the ire of commentators on both sides of the Atlantic. In an 1893 article published in the Manchester Times, the author proclaims that the meaning of the term Welsh rabbit “forms one of the most curious feats of the amateur etymologist.” Complaining about the prevalence of “Welsh rare-bits” on restaurant menus, the author attributes this to what he/she believed was unnecessary confusion caused by the use of the word “rabbit.” In defense of the “rabbit,” he/she goes on to argue:

Welsh rabbit is a genuine slang term, belonging to a large class of similar terms, describing in a humorous manner the special dish, product, or peculiarity of a particular district. Thus in England, a “German duck, or “Field-lane duck,” is ordinary eating house mock heroic for a sheep’s head stewed with onions…Potatoes are euphemistically termed “Irish apricots” and “Munster plums,” and shrimps are “Gravesend sweetmeats.” In New England codfish are frequently known as “Cape cod turkeys”…Similar examples abound in every country.^[6]

In a similar article appearing the following year in the United States, another writer appears to be blaming the name change on Noah Webster. Furthermore, he/she complains, “The incorrectness of this spelling has been pointed out so often in newspapers that it is about time the keepers of restaurants learned the fact and printed the word on their bills as it should be.”^[7] Nonetheless, even as the debate carried on for decades in the press, Welsh rarebit continued to be the favored term. This was likely due, at least in part, to the reinforcement of the term by dictionaries, restaurant menus, and the many recipes that appeared in ever-proliferating cookbooks, magazines, newspapers, and advertisements in the 19th and 20th centuries. The most notable example of this appears in Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861), which lists a recipe for “toasted cheese or Welsh rare-bit. ”^[8]

[edit] Variations of Ingredients and Preparation

Complicating the confusion over the name, the dish itself has undergone an evolution. In its earliest form it appears to merely have been roasted cheese and bread. In addition to Francis Grose’s desciption given above (bread and cheefe toafted), Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy offers an even earlier description of the dish. First published in London in 1747, Glasse’s simple recipe for Welch rabbit is as follows: “Toast the Bread on both Sides, then toaft the Cheefe on one Side, lay it on the Toaft, and with a hot Iron brown the other Side. You may rub it over with Muftard.” In addition, she includes a recipe for “Scotch rabbit” (toast the cheese on both sides before laying it on buttered bread, no mustard) and an “English rabbit” (the toast is soaked in red wine before thin slices of cheese are placed on top and browned in a “Tin Over before the Fire”). What is more interesting is the alternative recipe given for an “English rabbit:"

Toast the Bread and foak it in the Wine, fet it before the Fire, cut your Cheefe in very thin Slices, rub Butter over the Bottom of a Plate, lay the Cheefe on, pour in two or three Spoonfuls of White Wine, cover it with another Plate, fet it over a Chafing-difh of hot Coals for two or three Minutes, then ftir it till it is down and well mixed. You may ftir in a little Mustard; when it is enough lay it on the Bread, juft brown it with a hot Shovel. Serve it away hot.^[9]

This version more closely resembles the recipes for Welsh rarebit that became popular in the later part of the 19th century, i.e. the cheese is made into a sauce, which includes alcohol (the 1799 edition of the book substitutes white wine for the red) and mustard, and is served over toast. Furthermore, while the The English Art of Cookery, (Third Edition, 1794), offers a simple “cheese on toast” version of Welch rabbit, it also includes recipes for “stewed cheefe” and “cheefe in fondeux”—both are which are very similar to “modern” Welsh rarebit recipes. In particular, the recipe for “stewed cheefe,” is noteable, as it a cheese sauce which includes ale and mustard:

CUT half a pound of Chefhire and Gloucefter cheefe in thin flices, put it into a ftew-pan, with a little ale or white wine, and keep it ftirring over the fire till it is melted; then put in a fpoonful of muftard, the yolks of two eggs beat up, ftir it a moment over the fire, then put in a fmall deep difh, or foup-plate, and brown it with a very hot irn or falamander; have ready thin toafted fippets, or fired ones, cut three cornerways, ftick them all round and in the middle, fend it up hot and quick..^[10]

In 1861, the first edition of what would become the highly popular Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management made its appearance in England. While the name of the dish is listed as “Toasted Cheese, or Welsh Rare-Bit,” (signifying an important change from “rabbit” to “rarebit”) the recipe is still the traditional “cheese on toast” version. Then curiously, there appear signs of a change in the preparation of the dish. What was originally called Welsh rarebit is once again referred to as “toasted cheese.” A line in a story, “The ‘Old Chophouse’ Waiter,” appearing in an 1875 issue of Liverpool Mercury etc seems to indicate that toasted cheese and Welsh rarebit were becoming two separate dishes: “Stewed cheese may be had all day, but toasted cheese and Welsh rarebit not until eight p.m., at which hour also you may have eggs on toast, but not before.” Further evidence that traditional “toasted cheese” came to be seen as not only different from Welsh rarebit, but even old-fashioned and outdated, can be found in an article from 1893 which begins with a recipe for Welsh rarebit (a cheese sauce over toast) before offering the following illuminating information:

Toasted cheese, which consists of thin cheese fitted into a dainty little pan with a long handle, which bears the name of cheese-toaster, is seldom seen. The cheese toaster is a rare family utensil at present, but in old times in was a part of the regular dining-room outfit, for to be in perfection cheese must be toasted before your very eyes by the dining-room fire. It was a custom to always serve a “cobbler” with every slice of toasted cheese, and a cobble in old household parlance was only a slice of bread browned on one side. .^[11]

Essentially, by the last quarter of the 19th century, the name Welsh rarebit seems to have been appropriated and applied to another dish or combination of dishes--stewed cheese, English rabbit, and/or fondue—-for reasons yet to be uncovered. But because of this convoluted history, vernacular use today of the terms Welsh rarebit, Welsh rabbit, or rarebit(s) can be applied to any number of dishes that include melted cheese served on toast or crackers.

[edit] Chronology of Significant Recipes

Seventeenth Century

The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened, Kenelm Digby, 1669

SAVOURY TOSTED OR MELTED CHEESE
Cut pieces of quick, fat, rich, well tasted cheese, (as the best of Brye, Cheshire, &c. or sharp thick Cream-Cheese) into a dish of thick beaten melted Butter, that hath served for Sparages or the like, or pease, or other boiled Sallet, or ragout of meat, or gravy of Mutton: and, if you will, Chop some of the Asparages among it, or slices of Gambon of Bacon, or fresh-collops, or Onions, or Sibboulets, or Anchovis, and set all this to melt upon a Chafing-dish of Coals, and stir all well together, to Incorporate them; and when all is of an equal consistence, strew some gross White-Pepper on it, and eat it with tosts or crusts of White-bread. You may scorch it at the top with a hot Fire-Shovel.^[12]

Eighteenth Century

The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy'', Hannah Glasse, 1747

To make a Scotch Rabbit
Toast a Piece of Bread very nicely on both Sdies, butter it, cut a Slice of Cheefe about as big as the Bread, toaft it on both Sides, and lay it on the Bread.

To make a Welch Rabbit
Toast the Bread on both Sides, Then toaft the Cheefe on one Side, lay it on the Toaft, and with a hot Iron brown the other Side. You may rub it over with Muftard.

To make an English Rabbit
Toast a Slice of Bread brown on both Sides, then lay it in a Plate before the Fire, pour a Glafs of Red Wine over it, and let it soak the Wine up; then cut fome Cheefe very thin, and lay it very thick over the Bread; put it in a Tin Oven before the Fire, and it will be toafted and browned prefently. Serve it away hot.

Or do it thus.

Toast the Bread and foak it in the Wine, fet it before the Fire, cut your Cheefe in very thin Slices, rub Butter over the Bottom of a Plate, lay the Cheefe on, pour in two or three Spoonfuls of White Wine, cover it with another Plate, fet it over a Chafing-difh of hot Coals for two or three Minutes, then ftir it till it is down and well mixed. You may ftir in a little Mustard; when it is enough lay it on the Bread, juft brown it with a hot Shovel. Serve it away hot.^[13]

The English art of cookery, according to the present practice; being a complete guide to all housekeepers, ... With bills of fare for every month in the year. Neatly and correctly engraved on twelve copper-plates. The third edition. Richard Briggs, 1794

Cheefe in Fondeux.
CUT half a pound of Chethire and thin Gloucefter cheefe as thin as you can, pout it into a ftew-pan, with a glafs of white wine, as much cream, a little piece of butter, a few fine bread-crumbs, and keep it ftirring over the fire till the cheefe is melted; then put in a fpoonful of muftard, the yolks of two eggs beat up, and ftir it a moment; then put it into a filver difh, and brown it with a very hot iron or falamander; have toafted fippets cut three cornerways, and ftick them round it for garnifh.

Stewed Cheefe.
CUT half a pound of Chefhire and Gloucefter cheefe in thin flices, put it into a ftew-pan, with a little ale or white wine, and keep it ftirring over the fire till it is melted; then put in a fpoonful of muftard, the yolks of two eggs beat up, ftir it a moment over the fire, then put in a fmall deep difh, or foup-plate, and brown it with a very hot irn or falamander; have ready thin toafted fippets, or fired ones, cut three cornerways, ftick them all round and in the middle, fend it up hot and quick.

Welch Rabbit.
CUT a flice of bread a litte wider than the cheefe, cut off the cruft, and toaft it on both fides; cut a flice of cheefe moderately thick, put in a cheefe-toafter, and toaft one fide; then put the toafted fide downwards on the bread, and toaft the other fide; put pepper, falt, and muftard over it, cut it in pieces about an inch long, and fend it up quick.^[14]

Nineteenth Century

Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, Isabella Mary Mayson, 1861

TOASTED CHEESE, or WELSH RARE-BIT.
1652. INGREDIENTS - Slices of bread, butter, Cheshire or Gloucester cheese, mustard, and pepper.
Mode.—Cut the bread into slices about 1/2 inch in thickness; pare off the crust, toast the bread slightly without hardening or burning it, and spread it with butter. Cut some slices, not quite so large as the bread, from a good rich fat cheese; lay them on the toasted bread in a cheese-toaster; be careful that the cheese does not burn, and let it be equally melted. Spread over the top a little made mustard and a seasoning of pepper, and serve very hot, with very hot plates. To facilitate the melting of the cheese, it may be cut into thin flakes or toasted on one side before it is laid on the bread. As it is so essential to send this dish hot to table, it is a good plan to melt the cheese in small round silver or metal pans, and to send these pans to table, allowing one for each guest. Slices of dry or buttered toast should always accompany them, with mustard, pepper, and salt.^[15]

"Household Department," The Leeds Mercury, March 15, 1879

WELSH RABBIT, OR RAREBIT.—This tasty but rather heavy supper dish is very easily arranged. It most commonly consists of a slice of toasted bread, laid on a very hot plate, and ran over with melted cheese. Season to taste with mustard and ketchup. The Welsh rarebit can, of course, be varied. Some butter the toast, and also pour a little warm porter over the melted cheese as soon as it runs over the bread. Melt the cheese till it is quite liquid. Some serve the melted cheese in a sauce tureen and keep it hot as long as it is on the table, by letting the tureen stand in a dish containing boiling water.^[16]

“Other Domestic Hints and Recipes,” Manchester Times, March 31, 1893

WELSH RAREBIT, &c.—For a genuine Welsh rarebit, take a pound of “fat and crumbly” cheese, cut it in bits and put it in a shallow saucepan at the back part of the stove. Add a tablespoonful of butter and a gill of rich milk, and set the saucepan in a pan of boiling water, and stir the cheese gradually until it melts, and a smooth, thick mixture is formed. Have ready two slices of bread, from which the crusts have been trimmed and which have been toasted a delicate brown. For this purpose the toast should be soft, not crisp. Moisten the toast with a little boiled milk, then spread the mixture thickly over it. If you wish a golden buck you must add a poached egg on top of each slice of toast. The greatest mistake which amateurs make is to serve this preparation of cheese on crisp hard toast, when it loses all its delicacy. The bread must be soft and the cheese much be rich and mellow, and, above all, it must be served very hot. Some cooks add a bit of cayenne, a mere pinch, but this is not a port of the original English preparation. Toasted cheese, which consists of thin cheese fitted into a dainty little pan with a long handle, which bears the name of cheese-toaster, is seldom seen. The cheese toaster is a rare family utensil at present, but in old times in was a part of the regular dining-room outfit, for to be in perfection cheese must be toasted before your very eyes by the dining-room fire. It was a custom to always serve a “cobbler” with every slice of toasted cheese, and a cobble in old household parlance was only a slice of bread browned on one side. Another simple dish which is very appetizing to serve on the supper table, is buttered toast and cheese. For this dish the toast must be cut rather thin and toasted lightly over a rather quick fire. It is a good plan to fan the fire a little with the toaster in order to keep the bread from burning or hardening, and yet secure a delicate brown crust on the outside. Butter each slice of bread as it comes from the toaster, and cover it with grated cheese to about the thickness of the slice. Keep the toast near the fire in a covered muffiner till it is ready for the table.^[17]

Twentieth Century

Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook, General Mills, Inc., 1950

A version of this cookbook has remained in print since this first edition. Here "Betty" offers some uniquely mid-century American takes on Welsh Rarebit, including:
Welsh Rarebit de Luxe: Ginger ale is added in place of the traditional beer
Brer Rabbit with Corn: Apparently a "Southern" take on the dish
Rum Tum Tiddy (Pink Bunny): Welsh Rarebit with a canned tomato soup base^[18]

[edit] References (I need to fix these up a bit)

[edit] Musings, Mumblings, and POV Ramblings (not to be included in final article)

Here’s my personal take on the whole rarebit versus rabbit thing. As many writers have pointed out, there are many other humorous food terms that are accepted without debate. For instance, in the United States there are chicken fingers (small strips of fried chicken) and prairie oysters (fried bull’s testicles). The question is why did the debate over the term rarebit begin at least a hundred years after it was introduced? Why a debate at all if such slang terms were usually accepted? First of all, such terms aren’t completely arbitrary. For instance other foods besides “chicken fingers” are referred to as “fingers” such as “lady fingers” or “fingerling potatoes” or even “finger food” because we understand them to be either finger-shaped or eaten with the fingers. Prairie oysters are understood to be a rare food that is similar in size and shape (and rareness, as in less easily had) to an oyster and the prairie is a reference to cattle. So the rabbit has to have been a joke that was once easily understood. I mean, if I pulled out a Brussels sprout and called it “American pudding,” it just wouldn’t make any sense and wouldn’t be funny. I think “rabbit” has to do with the original preparation of the dish, i.e. roasted cheese.

Imagine this completely fabricated, but illustrative (hopefully), scenario: In Ye Olde England, a Welshman is traveling to London by foot. He hunts for food along the way, camping out with other travelers along the road at night. Late one evening he sees a fire and stops there to bed down for the night. The traveling Englishman already there is roasting over the open fire a freshly caught rabbit skewered on a young sapling. As the Welshman settles before the fire, the Englishman asks him if he has caught anything for supper. Exhausted and having been unable to hunt for anything fresh, he pulls a hunk of hard cheese from the sack he carries, spears it on a stick, and holds it roasting on the fire alongside the Englishman’s rabbit. With good humor, the Welshman tells the Englishman that he’ll be having some special “Welsh” rabbit for supper. They laugh because the joke is obvious; the cheese is a substitute for rabbit, prepared in the same manner, and the Welsh are known for their partiality to good cheese. In fact, the Englishman thinks the other guy’s supper is looking pretty good and makes it himself somewhere along the way and uses the same name when someone asks him what it is. Unfortunately, there is no journalist nearby to document either incident. Fast-forward to the last decades of the 19th century. We are now in a middle class Victorian home. There is no fireplace in the kitchen, instead is a modern coal burning stove. Would the lady of the house be pleased if her family or guests sat in her front parlor, one by one roasting hunks of cheese in her fireplace and dripping a greasy mess on her oriental carpet? Nooooo! Instead she opts to use her modern stove—or better yet, her new chafing dish— to whip up a cheese sauce that can be easily prepared for several people all at once and served bubbling hot at her elegantly set dining room table. Does this in any way resemble roasting a “rabbit”? No. Is it still so funny? No. Hence the preference for the term “rarebit.” Though why they (the Victorians) chose to call it Welsh rarebit instead of English rarebit, which it is more similar to (mustard, wine or ale), I can't say unless Welsh just seemed more cheesy for some reason. The reason for this might pop up eventually as more books and newspapers get digitized and searchable.

What I cannot figure out is why the term rarebit came about in the first place, fairly early in the history, and with no seeming disagreement about which term was correct. But I have noticed--though it may not hold true in all cases—while the cheese on toast version may be called either rabbit or rarebit in recipes, by the end of the 19th century, I don’t seem to have come across a recipe where the saucy version is called rabbit, I think they’ve all used the term rarebit. But I haven’t done a systematic review of all the recipes, just my impression that rarebit is used to distinctly refer to the sauce as opposed to the original toasted cheese. OwenSaunders (talk) 04:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)