Welsh rarebit or Welsh rabbit ( or ) is a dish consisting of a hot cheese-based sauce served over slices of toasted bread. The original 18th-century name of the dish was the jocular "Welsh rabbit", which was later reinterpreted as "rarebit", as the dish contains no

rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...

. 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 Welsh cuisine ( Welsh: ''Ceginiaeth Cymreig'') encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with Wales. While there are many dishes that can be considered Welsh due to their ingredients and/or history, dishes such as cawl, ...

, 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 Cheese on toast is made by placing sliced or grated cheese on toasted bread and melting it under a grill. It is popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, the Caribbean and in African countries. It is also known as roa ...

. Others make the sauce of cheese,

ale Ale is a Type of beer, type of beer brewed using a Warm fermentation, warm fermentation method, resulting in a sweet, full-bodied and fruity taste. Historically, the term referred to a drink brewed without hops. As with most beers, ale typicall ...

, and

mustard Mustard may refer to: Food and plants * Mustard (condiment), a paste or sauce made from mustard seeds used as a condiment * Mustard plant, one of several plants, having seeds that are used for the condiment ** Mustard seed, seeds of the mustard p ...

, and garnished with

cayenne pepper The cayenne pepper is a type of ''Capsicum annuum''. It is usually a moderately hot chili pepper used to flavor dishes. Cayenne peppers are a group of tapering, 10 to 25 cm long, generally skinny, mostly red-colored peppers, often with ...

paprika Paprika ( US , ; UK , ) is a spice made from dried and ground red peppers. It is traditionally made from ''Capsicum annuum'' varietals in the Longum group, which also includes chili peppers, but the peppers used for paprika tend to be milder an ...

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

, ''

Le Guide Culinaire ''Le Guide Culinaire'' () is Georges Auguste Escoffier, Escoffier's 1903 French cuisine, French restaurant cuisine cookbook, his first. It is a classic and still in print. Escoffier developed the recipes while working at the Savoy, Ritz and Carlto ...

'', 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 Bechamel sauce ( ) is a sauce traditionally made from a white roux (butter and flour in a 1:1 mixture by weight) and milk. Bechamel may also be referred to as besciamella (Italy), besamel (Greece), or white sauce (U.S.). French, Italian and Greek ...

.The Constance Spry Cookery Book by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume Farmer, Fannie M., ''

Boston Cooking-School Cook Book The ''Boston Cooking-School Cook Book'' (1896) by Fannie Farmer is a 19th-century general reference cookbook which is still available both in reprint and in updated form. It was particularly notable for a more rigorous approach to recipe writing ...

'' Boston, 1896,

Variants

Hannah Glasse Hannah Glasse (; March 1708 – 1 September 1770) was an English cookery writer of the 18th century. Her first cookery book, ''The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy'', published in 1747, became the best-selling recipe book that century. It w ...

, 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 (appetizer, first cour ...

'' 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

Nord-Pas-de-Calais Nord-Pas-de-Calais (); pcd, Nord-Pas-Calés); is a former administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region Hauts-de-France. It consisted of the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais. Nord-Pas-de-Cala ...

and

Côte d'Opale The Opal Coast ( ; ) is a coastal region in northern France on the English Channel, popular with tourists. Geography The ''Côte d'Opale'' is a coastal region in northeastern France, in the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais. It extends ...

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 first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

'', 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 euphemistic expressions. Dysphemism may be motivated by fear, distaste, hatred, contempt, ...

, 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 Laverbread (; cy, bara lafwr or '; ga, sleabhac) is a food product made from laver, an edible seaweed (littoral alga) consumed mainly in Wales as part of local traditional cuisine. The seaweed is commonly found around the west coast of Great ...

); ''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 (french: animelles), is a dish made of bull testicles. The organs are often deep-fried after being skinned, coated in flour, pepper and salt, and ...

'' (bull testicles); and ''

Scotch woodcock Scotch woodcock is a British savoury dish consisting of creamy, lightly-scrambled eggs served on toast that has been spread with anchovy paste or Gentleman's Relish, and sometimes topped with chopped herbs and black pepper. Scotch woodcock was ...

'' (scrambled eggs and anchovies on toast). The dish may have been attributed to the

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

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 Francis Grose (born before 11 June 1731 – 12 May 1791) was an English antiquary, draughtsman, and lexicographer. He produced ''A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'' (1785) and ''A Provincial Glossary, with a Collection of Local Prove ...

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..." * 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 as one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by t ...

(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 Henry Watson Fowler (10 March 1858 – 26 December 1933) was an English schoolmaster, lexicographer and commentator on the usage of the English language. He is notable for both ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' and his work on the '' Co ...

(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 popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Marie-Antoi ...

, 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 A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food such as different types of roast meats and cheese, and (mostly historically) where travelers would receive lodging. An inn is a tavern that h ...

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 burger, is a food consisting of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically Ground beef, beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. Hamburgers are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles ...

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

has existed since the

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

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

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 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 cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...

, '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 (class), aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below Royal family, royalty. Nobility has often been an Estates of the realm, estate of the realm with many e ...

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

Ben Jonson Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...

and

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

ate Welsh rarebit at

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is a Grade II listed public house at 145 Fleet Street, on Wine Office Court, City of London. Rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire of 1666, the pub is known for its literary associations, with its regular patrons havi ...

, 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 Zenas Winsor McCay ( – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip ''Little Nemo'' (1905–14; 1924–26) and the animated film ''Gertie the Dinosaur'' (1914). For contractual reasons, he worke ...

's comic strip series ''

Dream of the Rarebit Fiend ''Dream of the Rarebit Fiend'' is a newspaper comic strip by American cartoonist Winsor McCay, begun September 10, 1904. It was McCay's second successful strip, after '' Little Sammy Sneeze'' secured him a position on the cartoon staff of the ' ...

'' 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. ''Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.''The show (and CBS) renders the title as ''Gomer Pyle – USMC''. is an American situation comedy that originally aired on CBS from September 25, 1964, to May 2, 1969. The series was a spin-off of ''The Andy Griffith Sho ...

'', indulging in Welsh rarebit causes Gomer (and later Sgt. Carter) to sleepwalk and exhibit inverse personality traits.

References

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