Welsh rarebit
Welsh rarebit [ welʃ reərbɪt ] ( ) is a court of Welsh cuisine and is its traditional variant of melted cheese with spices and herbs , the hot over a slice of roasted mixed bread or crackers is given. The dish was first mentioned in a cookbook in 1747 as "Welch rabbit" [sic!]. Other (historical and now unusual) names for this dish are Welsh rabbit [ welʃ ˈræbɪt ] ( ) and Scotch rabbit [ skɒtʃ ˈræbɪt ] ( ).
Origin, preparation and variants
The traditional variant of the preparation of this dish can be found for the first time in Hannah Glasses cookbook The Art of Cookery from 1747 under the keywords "Welch rabbit" [sic!] And "Scotch rabbit":
" To Make Welch 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. Scotch rabbit: butter it. "
The cookbook Glasses is aimed at the British lower class and mainly lists simple and inexpensive dishes; "Welsh rarebit" was at least a "poor man's meal" when it was created. As is usual with historical recipes, details and quantities are missing. There are no rules about what kind of bread to use, the thickness of the slice to be chosen, which types of cheese are suitable for this dish or which type of mustard goes with it. That is why different variants of this dish have developed over the centuries that followed.
Later recipes use “a finger-thick slice of brown bread” as the basis and include mustard, ground cayenne pepper , paprika powder , a dash of ale and Worcester sauce as an addition to the melting cheese .
In the 20th century the dish changed again, emphasizing that it was a vegetarian dish, although some recipes recommend combining it with leek slices and diced bacon . In Constance Spry's 1956 cookbook, the addition of a small amount of flour to the cheese mass can be found for the first time .
The Wales Tourism Board has been using the recipe to actively promote local products such as Welsh Farmhouse Cheese since the 2000s .
Modern variations include that the cheese mass separately in a small pot from copper on a warmer is served, one impaled bread cubes eintunkt therein, and then eating.
Nowadays the Welsh rarebit is no longer a finger food dish, provided it is served with a slice of bread, but is eaten with cutlery . The variant in which the cheese mass is placed on small, round crackers common in the Anglo-Saxon region, on the other hand, is eaten by hand.
etymology
“Welsh rabbit” and “Scotch rabbit” are the older names for this dish, but today the term “Welsh rarebit” has prevailed and is used, for example, by government agencies as the sole name for this dish.
The Food History Almanac speculates how the court got its name because, although it is now actively used by the Welsh Tourism Authority for advertising purposes, there is no historical reference to Wales or Scotland ; besides, it was always a meatless dish that did not contain rabbit meat . According to this, the English once ascribed to the Welsh people either being too slow or too stupid to catch a fast rabbit, or the name is an ironic self- reference to their own inability.
If you also pronounce “rabbit” aristocratically and drawn out, it sounds similar to “rarebit”.
In his 2009 publication on Wales, the culture and travel journalist Terry Breverton provides another plausible derivation of the original term Welsh rabbit : He points out that at the time of the Empire many domestic servants of the English upper class came from Wales, while the gentlemen were in the dining room actually ate rabbits, that is meat, the staff only got cheese on toast , so a meatless "Welsh rabbit".
Distribution in the USA
Due to the fact - which is also known from other recipes such as the mulligatawny soup - that (early) cookbooks on originally British cuisine were sold throughout the Anglophone-speaking area , Welsh rarebit can also be found in a number of cookbooks on American cuisine between 1840 and 1945. Most of them cite cheddar cheese as a cheese ingredient, which was both produced in the USA and imported from Great Britain. At the time of prohibition , the addition of near beer , a contemporary generic term for non-alcoholic American beer, is recommended to the cheese mass.
Similar dishes
literature
- Alan Eaton Davidson : Glasse . In: Ders .: The Oxford Companion to Food . 2nd edition, Oxford University Press , Oxford 2006, pp.340f. ISBN 9780192806819 .
- National Trust : Gentleman's Relish And Other English Culinary Oddities . A gourmet's guide. Anova Books, 2007. ISBN 1905400551 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry at merriam-webster.com, accessed on February 8, 2017.
- ^ Entry in the Oxford dictionary, accessed February 8, 2017.
- ↑ a b c Hannah Glasse: The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, Which Far Exceeds Any Thing of the Kind yet published. J. Rivington and Sons. Page 196. London, 1747.
- ^ A b c Alice L. McLean: Cooking in America, 1840-1945. Page 161f. Daily Life Through History, 2006. ISBN 9780313335747 .
- ↑ Auguste Escoffier : Le guide culinaire, aide-mémoire de cuisine pratique. Page 756. Paris, 1903.
- ↑ Constance Spry, Rosemary Hume: The Constance Spry Cookery Book. ( Reprint : Grub Street, 2011). London, 1956. ISBN 9781908117175 .
- ↑ a b Recipe for “Welsh rarebit” on visitwales.com, accessed on February 8, 2017.
- ↑ a b c d e Janet Clarkson: Food History Almanac: Over 1,300 Years of World Culinary History, Culture, and Social Influence. Rowman & Littlefield Studies in Food and Gastronomy, 2013. ISBN 9781442227149 .
- ↑ Herb Reich: Don't You Believe It! Exposing the Myths Behind Commonly Believed Fallacies. Skyhorse Publishing, 2010. ISBN 9781602397668 .
- ↑ Terry Breverton: Wales: A Historical Companion. Amberley Publishing, Gloucestershire , 2009. ISBN 978-1-84868-326-6 .