Conceptual Food

Welsh Rarebit is one of those concepts that it seems has always existed in my mind, even though I have no direct knowledge of it. I’m pretty sure I read about the pronunciation of Rarebit as Rabbit long before I had any cause to speak the term. But regardless of pronunciation, this is food. Taste, texture, aroma are the key characteristics. As to them, I can only extrapolate.

This is one of those dishes that seems to have been popular because it was so easy you could make it yourself. You know, when your servants had their night off, or had already gone to bed, or you were away at school. I’m not a culinary anthropologist, and it’s possible that this originated as peasant food: yet another way to use up hard cheese and stale bread, or a meal that didn’t require expensive meat but in my mind this is the sort of thing one makes after coming home from the theater.

It is a classic in the chafing dish repertoire. Though nowadays the chafing dish is mostly used to keep foods warm at a buffet, it used to be used much more often for cooking at the table. Crêpes suzette anyone? Ah! An unstorable, unwieldy rather specialized piece of kitchen equipment that involves open flame? I am so there.

I have started the process of inviting a few friends out to the theater and then back here for some Welsh Rarebit. (I may never feel the special satisfaction of feeding myself on cook’s night off, but I can replicate the après-theatre part of the experience). Of course, I’ll have to have a trial run before the cooking performance. Tonight seems like a good night.

First I have to find a recipe. Welsh Rarebit is a melted, spiced cheese and bread combo. It’s similar to cheese fondue except you use cheddar and beer instead of Swiss and wine. Also you pour it over toast rather than dunking in hunks of bread. Checking the index of ten or so of my most likely cookbooks yields seven recipes.

If I were Christopher Kimball, I might make each recipe as a written so I could compare the results and then begin making adjustments, but I don’t have the time or the patience. We can rule out the 1929 New Delineator cookbook along with the 1950 Chafing Dish cookery for substituting milk for beer. The 1989 Silver Palate New Basics addition of cornstarch doesn’t seem right, and the 1996 BH&G inclusion of sliced tomato and Canadian bacon is right out. Of the seven recipes, 3 have no egg, two have yolks only, and two have a whole egg. I think I’ll go with the 1937 For Men Only recipe as my base. It does include an egg. I may tone down the seasonings just a tad: Tabasco, cayenne, mustard and Worcestershire might be a bit much all together.

Of course which cheddar and beer I choose will have the most impact. I’ll have to see what looks good at the store.