Welsh rabbit
Encyclopedia
Welsh rarebit or Welsh rabbit is a dish
made with a savoury sauce
of melted cheese
and various other ingredients and served hot over toast
. The names of the dish originate from 18th century Great Britain. Welsh rarebit is typically made with Cheddar cheese
, in contrast to the Continental European fondue
which classically depends on Swiss cheeses.
"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 breads […] . 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."
Various recipes for Welsh rarebit include the addition of ale
, mustard
, ground cayenne pepper
or ground paprika
and Worcestershire sauce
. The sauce may also be made by blending cheese and mustard into a Béchamel sauce
or Mornay sauce
. Some recipes for Welsh rarebit have become textbook savoury dishes listed by culinary authorities including Escoffier, Saulnier and others, who tend to use the form Welsh rarebit, emphasising that it is not a meat dish. In the United States, a frozen prepared sauce sold under the Stouffer's
brand name can be found in supermarkets.
Acknowledging that there is more than one way to make a rarebit, some cookbooks have included two recipes: the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
of 1896 provides one béchamel-based recipe and another with beer, Le Guide Culinaire
of 1907 has one with ale and one without, and the Constance Spry
Cookery Book of 1956 has one with flour and one without.
added, either on top of or beneath the cheese sauce.
Kentucky Hot Brown
is a variant that adds turkey and bacon to the traditional rarebit recipe.
Welsh rabbit blended with tomato (or tomato soup) is known as Blushing Bunny.
were notoriously poor: only better-off people could afford butcher's meat, and while in England rabbit was the poor man's meat, in Wales the poor man's meat was cheese. It might also be understood as a slur against the Welsh: if a Welshman went rabbit hunting, this would be his supper.
It is also possible that the dish was attributed to Wales
because the Welsh were considered particularly fond of cheese, as evidenced by Andrew Boorde
in his Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge (1542), when he wrote "I am a Welshman, I do love cause boby, good roasted cheese." In Boorde's account, "cause boby" is the Welsh , meaning "baked cheese". It is the earliest known reference to cheese being eaten cooked in the British Isles but whether it implies a recipe like Welsh rarebit is a matter of speculation.
. According to the Oxford English Dictionary
, 'Welsh rarebit' is an "etymologizing alteration. There is no evidence of the independent use of rarebit".
Michael Quinion writes: "Welsh rabbit is basically cheese on toast (the word is not 'rarebit' by the way, that's the result of false etymology; 'rabbit' is here being used in the same way as 'turtle' in 'mock-turtle soup'
, which has never been near a turtle, or 'duck' in 'Bombay duck
', which was actually a dried fish called bummalo)".
The entry in Merriam-Webster
's Dictionary of English Usage is "Welsh rabbit, Welsh rarebit" and states: "When Francis Grose defined Welsh rabbit in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue in 1785, he mistakenly indicated that rabbit was a corruption of rarebit. It is not certain that this erroneous idea originated with Grose...."
In his 1926 edition of the Dictionary of Modern English Usage, the grammarian H. W. Fowler states a forthright view: "Welsh Rabbit is amusing and right. Welsh Rarebit is stupid and wrong."
The word rarebit has no other use than in Welsh rabbit and "rarebit" alone has come to be used in place of the original name.
claims that Welsh peasants were not allowed to eat rabbits caught in hunts on the estates of the nobility
, so they used melted cheese as a substitute. The cookbook writes that Ben Jonson
and Charles Dickens
ate Welsh rarebit at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub in London. There is no good evidence for any of this; what is more, Ben Jonson died almost a century before the term Welsh rabbit is first attested.
According to the American satirist Ambrose Bierce
, the continued use of rarebit was an attempt to rationalise the absence of rabbit, writing in his 1911 Devil's Dictionary: "RAREBIT 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."
Dish (food)
A dish in gastronomy is a specific food preparation, a "distinct article or variety of food", with cooking finished, and ready to eat, or be served.A "dish" may be served on dishware, or may be eaten out of hand; but breads are generally not called "dishes"....
made with a savoury sauce
Sauce
In cooking, a sauce is liquid, creaming or semi-solid food served on or used in preparing other foods. Sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to another dish. Sauce is a French word taken from the Latin salsus, meaning salted...
of melted cheese
Cheese
Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....
and various other ingredients and served hot over toast
Toast
Toast is bread that has been browned by exposure to radiant heat. This browning reaction is known as the Maillard reaction. Toasting warms the bread and makes it firmer, so it holds toppings more securely...
. The names of the dish originate from 18th century Great Britain. Welsh rarebit is typically made with Cheddar cheese
Cheddar cheese
Cheddar cheese is a relatively hard, yellow to off-white, and sometimes sharp-tasting cheese, produced in several countries around the world. It has its origins in the English village of Cheddar in Somerset....
, in contrast to the Continental European fondue
Fondue
Fondue is a Swiss dish of melted cheese served in a communal pot over a spirit lamp , and eaten by dipping long-stemmed forks with bread into the cheese...
which classically depends on Swiss cheeses.
"Eighteenth-century English cookbooks reveal that it was then considered to be a luscious supper or tavern
Tavern
A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....
dish, based on the fine cheddar-type cheeses and the wheat breads […] . 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."
Various recipes for Welsh rarebit include the addition of ale
Ale
Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a warm fermentation with a strain of brewers' yeast. The yeast will ferment the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste...
, mustard
Mustard (condiment)
Mustard is a condiment made from the seeds of a mustard plant...
, ground cayenne pepper
Cayenne pepper
The cayenne pepper—also known as the Guinea spice,cow-horn pepper, aleva, bird pepper,or, especially in its powdered form, red pepper—is a red, hot chili pepper used to flavor dishes and for medicinal purposes. Named for the city of Cayenne in French Guiana, it is a cultivar of Capsicum annuum...
or ground paprika
Paprika
Paprika is a spice made from the grinding of dried fruits of Capsicum annuum . In many European languages, the word paprika refers to bell peppers themselves. The seasoning is used in many cuisines to add color and flavor to dishes. Paprika can range from mild to hot...
and Worcestershire sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Worcestershire sauce , or Worcester sauce is a fermented liquid condiment; primarily used to flavour meat or fish dishes.First made at 60 Broad Street, Worcester, England, by two dispensing chemists, John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins, the Lea & Perrins brand was commercialised in 1837 and...
. The sauce may also be made by blending cheese and mustard into a Béchamel sauce
Béchamel sauce
Béchamel sauce , also known as white sauce, is one of the mother sauces of French cuisine and is used in many recipes of Italian cuisine, for example lasagne. It is used as the base for other sauces . It is traditionally made by whisking scalded milk gradually into a white roux...
or Mornay sauce
Mornay sauce
A Mornay sauce is a Béchamel sauce with shredded or grated cheese added. Usually, it consists of half Gruyère and half Parmesan cheese, though some variations use different combinations of Gruyère, Emmental cheese, or white Cheddar....
. Some recipes for Welsh rarebit have become textbook savoury dishes listed by culinary authorities including Escoffier, Saulnier and others, who tend to use the form Welsh rarebit, emphasising that it is not a meat dish. In the United States, a frozen prepared sauce sold under the Stouffer's
Stouffer's
Stouffer's is a brand of frozen prepared foods available in the United States and Canada. Stouffer's is known for such popular fare as meatloaf, salisbury steak, lasagna, macaroni and cheese, and ravioli. It also produces a line of reduced-fat products under the banner Lean...
brand name can be found in supermarkets.
Acknowledging that there is more than one way to make a rarebit, some cookbooks have included two recipes: the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer is a 19th century general reference cookbook which is still available both in reprint and in updated form...
of 1896 provides one béchamel-based recipe and another with beer, Le Guide Culinaire
Le Guide Culinaire
Georges Auguste Escoffier's Le Guide culinaire, pronounced , is a pivotal book in the history of European haute cuisine, being Escoffier's largely successful attempt to codify and streamline the common French restaurant food of the day. The first edition was printed in 1903 in French. It was...
of 1907 has one with ale and one without, and the Constance Spry
Constance Spry
Constance Spry was a famous British educator, florist and author in the mid-20th century.- Background :Constance Spry was born Constance Fletcher in Derby in 1886, eldest child and only daughter of George Fletcher and his wife Henrietta Maria Fletcher...
Cookery Book of 1956 has one with flour and one without.
Variants
The term rarebit is to some extent used for variants on the dish, especially buck rarebit which has a poached eggPoached egg
A poached egg is an egg that has been cooked by poaching, that is, in water.-Preparation:The egg is cracked into a bowl of any size, and then gently slid into a pan of simmering water and cooked until the egg white has mostly solidified, but the yolk remains soft...
added, either on top of or beneath the cheese sauce.
Kentucky Hot Brown
Hot Brown
A Hot Brown Sandwich is a hot sandwich originally created at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, by Fred K. Schmidt in 1926. It is a variation of traditional Welsh rarebit and was one of two signature sandwiches created by chefs at the Brown Hotel shortly after its founding in 1923...
is a variant that adds turkey and bacon to the traditional rarebit recipe.
Welsh rabbit blended with tomato (or tomato soup) is known as Blushing Bunny.
Origin of the names
The first recorded use of the term Welsh rabbit was in 1725, but the origin of the term is unknown. It may be an ironic name coined in the days when the WelshWelsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...
were notoriously poor: only better-off people could afford butcher's meat, and while in England rabbit was the poor man's meat, in Wales the poor man's meat was cheese. It might also be understood as a slur against the Welsh: if a Welshman went rabbit hunting, this would be his supper.
It is also possible that the dish was attributed to Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
because the Welsh were considered particularly fond of cheese, as evidenced by Andrew Boorde
Andrew Boorde
Andrew Boorde was an English traveller, physician and writer.Born at Boords Hill, Holms Dale, Sussex, he was educated at Oxford University, and was admitted a member of the Carthusian order while under age...
in his Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge (1542), when he wrote "I am a Welshman, I do love cause boby, good roasted cheese." In Boorde's account, "cause boby" is the Welsh , meaning "baked cheese". It is the earliest known reference to cheese being eaten cooked in the British Isles but whether it implies a recipe like Welsh rarebit is a matter of speculation.
Rarebit
The term Welsh rarebit is evidently a later corruption of Welsh rabbit, being first recorded in 1785 by Francis GroseFrancis Grose
Francis Grose was an English antiquary, draughtsman, and lexicographer. He was born at his father's house in Broad Street, St-Peter-le-Poer, London, son of a Swiss immigrant and jeweller, Francis Jacob Grose , and his wife, Anne , daughter of Thomas Bennett of Greenford in Middlesex...
. According to the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
, 'Welsh rarebit' is an "etymologizing alteration. There is no evidence of the independent use of rarebit".
Michael Quinion writes: "Welsh rabbit is basically cheese on toast (the word is not 'rarebit' by the way, that's the result of false etymology; 'rabbit' is here being used in the same way as 'turtle' in 'mock-turtle soup'
Mock turtle soup
Mock turtle soup is an English soup that was created in the mid-18th century as a cheaper imitation of green turtle soup. It often uses brains and organ meats such as calf's head or a calf's foot to duplicate the texture and flavour of the original's turtle meat.Mrs. Fowle's Mock Turtle Soup,:"Take...
, which has never been near a turtle, or 'duck' in 'Bombay duck
Bombay duck
The Bombay duck or bummalo is, despite its name, not a duck but a lizardfish. It is native to the waters between Mumbai and Kutch in the Arabian Sea, and a small number are also found in the Bay of Bengal. Great numbers are also caught in the South China Sea...
', which was actually a dried fish called bummalo)".
The entry in Merriam-Webster
Merriam-Webster
Merriam–Webster, which was originally the G. & C. Merriam Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, is an American company that publishes reference books, especially dictionaries that are descendants of Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language .Merriam-Webster Inc. has been a...
's Dictionary of English Usage is "Welsh rabbit, Welsh rarebit" and states: "When Francis Grose defined Welsh rabbit in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue in 1785, he mistakenly indicated that rabbit was a corruption of rarebit. It is not certain that this erroneous idea originated with Grose...."
In his 1926 edition of the Dictionary of Modern English Usage, the grammarian H. W. Fowler states a forthright view: "Welsh Rabbit is amusing and right. Welsh Rarebit is stupid and wrong."
The word rarebit has no other use than in Welsh rabbit and "rarebit" alone has come to be used in place of the original name.
Legends and humour
A legend mentioned in Betty Crocker's CookbookBetty Crocker
Betty Crocker AKA: batter witch is a cultural icon, as well as brand name and trademark of American Fortune 500 corporation General Mills. The name was first developed by the Washburn Crosby Company in 1921 as a way to give a personalized response to consumer product questions. The name Betty was...
claims that Welsh peasants were not allowed to eat rabbits caught in hunts on the estates of the nobility
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
, so they used melted cheese as a substitute. The cookbook writes that Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
and Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
ate Welsh rarebit at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub in London. There is no good evidence for any of this; what is more, Ben Jonson died almost a century before the term Welsh rabbit is first attested.
According to the American satirist Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...
, the continued use of rarebit was an attempt to rationalise the absence of rabbit, writing in his 1911 Devil's Dictionary: "RAREBIT 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
Toad in the hole
Toad in the hole is a traditional English dish consisting of sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with vegetables and onion gravy....
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."
See also
- Dream of the Rarebit Fiend
- Beer soupBeer SoupBeer soup is a soup which is usually roux-based and made with beer and cheese.Variations on the recipe use the starchiness of potato as a thickener....
- Cheese on toastCheese on ToastCheese on toast is a snack made by placing cheese on slices of toasted bread and melting the cheese under a grill. It is a simple meal, popular in the United Kingdom.-Recipes:...
- Cheese rollCheese rollA cheese roll is a snack food similar to Welsh rarebit, but created by covering a slice of bread in a prepared filling consisting mainly of grated or sliced cheese, and then rolling it into a tube shape before toasting...
- Croque-monsieurCroque-monsieurA croque-monsieur is a hot ham and cheese grilled sandwich. It originated in France as a fast-food snack served in cafés and bars...
and croque-madame - Dagwood sandwichDagwood sandwichA Dagwood sandwich is a tall, multi-layered sandwich made with a variety of meats, cheeses and condiments. It was named after Dagwood Bumstead, a central character in the comic strip Blondie, who is frequently illustrated making enormous sandwiches...
- Grilled cheese sandwich
- Horseshoe sandwichHorseshoe sandwichThe horseshoe sandwich originated in Springfield, Illinois. This open-faced sandwich begins with thick-sliced toasted bread, and most often hamburger patties, or ham. Other meat is also used, such as deep fried pork tenderloin, grilled or fried chicken breast, and fried fish filets. There is also...
- Hot BrownHot BrownA Hot Brown Sandwich is a hot sandwich originally created at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, by Fred K. Schmidt in 1926. It is a variation of traditional Welsh rarebit and was one of two signature sandwiches created by chefs at the Brown Hotel shortly after its founding in 1923...
- Jiggs dinner
- Monte Cristo sandwichMonte Cristo sandwichA Monte Cristo is a fried ham and cheese sandwich. The cheese used is Emmental or Gruyère.-Description:The sandwich can differ regionally. Regional variations may include sliced turkey along with the ham and cheese. Traditionally, the sandwich is dipped in its entirety in egg batter and fried...