THE REAL "WELSH RABBIT."

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2929, 1 August 1911, Page 2

THE REAL "WELSH RABBIT."

"Though this be called Welsh), yet no one knowetb well why ye name be added." So'said Mrs. Glasse, and* it may be doubted whether anyone among the generations of cookeryloot makers who have succeeded her is tetter informed as to how the Principality first got credit for this delectable rheese preparation. For the Welsh raibtt (properly rare-bit), if it were ever a local dish, has certainly not, within the knowledge of living men been a Welsh dne. If it has been found anywhere in unusual perfection, that locality is, without doubt,. the City of London. The Welsh rabbit was a special attribute of the London chop house or tavern of the old school. It may b» eaten yet with satisfaction at the

"CHESHIRE CHEESE."

A century ago, when men had robust appetites, dined off underdone beefsteaks, drank old Burton ale before breakfast, and two or three bottles of old port after dinner, they were not afraid of indigestible suppers. There was no dalliance then with the mayonnaise or wing of a Cold chicken. The suppers were as solid realities as the rest of the meals. Three or four Welsh rabbits apiece were a fair allowance for a man of average appetite, and our great-grand-fathers ate them, and went, or were carried, to bed, and slept none the worse, nor dreamed of gout, dyspep-. sia, or Food Reform Leagues. In those days every tavern in London had its Welsh rabbit maker. The price for the article was one shilling and sixpence, and

FASTIDIOUS WELSH RABBITERS

liked to overlook the process. The cook brought grater, hard bits of stale cheese, thick slices of stale bread, three or four days old, a pat of fresh butter, a mustard-pot, and a gill of old ale. Into a clean saucepan went the ale, which was quickly brought to the boiling point; the cheese, grated fine, went in next, followed by the butter and mustard. The bread was sometimes toasted, sometimes merely warmed in the oven, and on it the sizzling mass was poured, and placed immediately before the eater.

This is the only genuine formula for making Welsh rabhit. The recipes given in cookery-books are almost invariably wrong. A widely circulated book of household lore, for instance, tells us t<o "MELT SLICES OF RICH CHEESE' to make a Welsh rabbit, the writer, apparently, not knowing that cheese to he thoroughly mixed with the other ingredients and to be rendered digestible by thorough cooking must be grated. The Italians, great at cheese cooking, know this. So did their remote Roman ancestors, for cheese graters have been found in Pompeii. Slices of melted cheese mix with nothing, and cool rapidly into a plausible imitation of shoe leather. —"Daily Chronicle."