The Complete Book of Cheese Part 7

Give a thought to the sad case of the "little dog whose name was Rover, and when he was dead he was dead all over." Something very similar happens with a Rabbit that's allowed to cool down--when it's cold it's cold all over, and you can't resuscitate it by heating.

BASIC WELSH RABBIT

No. 1 (with beer)

2 tablespoons b.u.t.ter 3 cups grated old Cheddar 1/2 teaspoon English dry mustard 1/2 teaspoon salt A dash of cayenne 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten with 1/2 cup light beer or ale 4 slices hot b.u.t.tered toast

Over boiling water melt b.u.t.ter and cheese together, stirring steadily with a wooden (or other tasteless) spoon in one direction only. Add seasonings and do not interrupt your rhythmic stirring, as you pour in a bit at a time of the beer-and-egg mixture until it's all used up.

It may take many minutes of constant stirring to achieve the essential creamy thickness and then some more to slick it out as smooth as velvet.

Keep it piping hot but don't let it bubble, for a boiled Rabbit is a spoiled Rabbit. Only unremitting stirring (and the best of cheese) will keep it from curdling, getting stringy or rubbery.

Pour the Rabbit generously over crisp, freshly b.u.t.tered toast and serve instantly on hot plates.

Usually crusts are cut off the bread before toasting, and some aesthetes toast one side only, spreading the toasted side with cold b.u.t.ter for taste contrast. Lay the toast on the hot plate, b.u.t.tered side down, and pour the Rabbit over the porous untoasted side so it can soak in. (This is recommended in Lady Llanover's recipe, which appears on page 52 of this book.)

Although the original bread for Rabbit toast was white, there is now no limit in choice among whole wheat, graham, rolls, m.u.f.fins, buns, croutons and crackers, to infinity.

No. 2 (with milk)

For a rich milk Rabbit use 1/2 cup thin cream, evaporated milk, whole milk or b.u.t.termilk, instead of beer as in No. 1. Then, to keep everything bland, cut down the mustard by half or leave it out, and use paprika in place of cayenne. As in No. 1, the use of Worcestershire sauce is optional, although our feeling is that any spirited Rabbit would resent its being left out.

Either of these basic recipes can be made without eggs, and more cheaply, although the beaten egg is a guarantee against stringiness.

When the egg is missing, we are sad to record that a teaspoon or so of cornstarch generally takes its place.

Rabbiteers are of two minds about fast and slow heating and stirring, so you'll have to adjust that to your own experience and rhythm. As a rule, the heat is reduced when the cheese is almost melted, and speed of stirring slows when the eggs and last ingredients go in.

Many moderns who have found that monosodium glutamate steps up the flavor of natural cheese, put it in at the start, using one-half teaspoon for each cup of grated Cheddar. When it comes to pepper you are fancy-free. As both black and white pepper are now held in almost equal esteem, you might equip your hutch with twin hand-mills to do the grinding fresh, for this is always worth the trouble. Tabasco sauce is little used and needs a cautious hand, but some addicts can't leave it out any more than they can swear off the Worcestershire.

The school that plumps for malty Rabbits and the other that goes for milky ones are equally emphatic in their choice. So let us consider the compromise of our old friend Frederick Philip Stieff, the Baltimore _homme de bouche_, as he set it forth for us years ago in _10,000 Snacks_: "The idea of cooking a Rabbit with beer is an exploded and dangerous theory. Tap your keg or open your case of ale or beer and serve _with_, not in your Rabbit."

The Stieff Recipe BASIC MILK RABBIT (_completely surrounded by a lake of malt beverages_)

2 cups grated sharp cheese 3 heaping tablespoons b.u.t.ter 1-1/2 cups milk 4 eggs 1 heaping tablespoon mustard 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce Pepper, salt and paprika to taste--then add more of each.

Grease well with b.u.t.ter the interior of your double boiler so that no hard particles of cheese will form in the mixture later and contribute undesirable lumps.

Put cheese, well-grated, into the double boiler and add b.u.t.ter and milk. From this point vigorous stirring should be indulged in until Rabbit is ready for serving.

Prepare a mixture of Worcestershire sauce, mustard, pepper, salt and paprika. These should be beaten until light and then slowly poured into the double boiler. Nothing now remains to be done except to stir and cook down to proper consistency over a fairly slow flame. The finale has not arrived until you can drip the rabbit from the spoon and spell the word _finis_ on the surface.

Pour over two pieces of toast per plate and send anyone home who does not attack it at once.

This is sufficient for six gourmets or four gourmands.

_Nota bene_: A Welsh Rabbit, to be a success, should never be of the consistency whereby it may be used to tie up bundles, nor yet should it bounce if inadvertently dropped on the kitchen floor.

Lady Llanover's Toasted Welsh Rabbit

Cut a slice of the real Welsh cheese made of sheep's and cow's milk; toast it at the fire on both sides, but not so much as to drop (melt). Toast on one side a piece of bread less than 1/4 inch thick, to be quite crisp, and spread it very thinly with fresh, cold b.u.t.ter on the toasted side. (It must not be saturated.) Lay the toasted cheese upon the untoasted bread side and serve immediately on a very hot plate. The b.u.t.ter on the toast can, of course, be omitted. (It is more frequently eaten without b.u.t.ter.)

From this original toasting of the cheese many Englishmen still call Welsh Rabbit "Toasted Cheese," but Lady Llanover goes on to point out that the Toasted Rabbit of her Wales and the Melted or Stewed Buck Rabbit of England (which has become our American standard) are as different in the making as the regional cheeses used in them, and she says that while doctors prescribed the toasted Welsh as salubrious for invalids, the stewed cheese of Olde England was "only adapted to strong digestions."

English literature rings with praise for the toasted cheese of Wales and England. There is Christopher North's eloquent "threads of unbeaten gold, shining like gossamer filaments (that may be pulled from its tough and tenacious substance)."

Yet not all of the references are complimentary.

Thus Shakespeare in _King Lear_:

Look, look a mouse!

Peace, peace;--this piece of toasted cheese will do it.

And Sydney Smith's:

Old friendships are destroyed by toasted cheese, and hard salted meat has led to suicide.

But Khys Davis in _My Wales_ makes up for such rudenesses:

_The Welsh Enter Heaven_

The Lord had been complaining to St. Peter of the dearth of good singers in Heaven. "Yet," He said testily, "I hear excellent singing outside the walls. Why are not those singers here with me?"

St. Peter said, "They are the Welsh. They refuse to come in; they say they are happy enough outside, playing with a ball and boxing and singing such songs as '_Suspan Fach_'"

The Lord said, "I wish them to come in here to sing Bach and Mendelssohn. See that they are in before sundown."

St. Peter went to the Welsh and gave them the commands of the Lord. But still they shook their heads. Hara.s.sed, St. Peter went to consult with St. David, who, with a smile, was reading the works of Caradoc Evans.

St. David said, "Try toasted cheese. Build a fire just inside the gates and get a few angels to toast cheese in front of it" This St. Peter did. The heavenly aroma of the sizzling, browning cheese was wafted over the walls and, with loud shouts, a great concourse of the Welsh came sprinting in. When sufficient were inside to make up a male voice choir of a hundred, St Peter slammed the gates. However, it is said that these are the only Welsh in Heaven.

And, lest we forget, the wonderful drink that made Alice grow and grow to the ceiling of Wonderland contained not only strawberry jam but toasted cheese.

Then there's the frightening nursery rhyme:

The Irishman loved usquebaugh, The Scot loved ale called Bluecap.

The Welshman, he loved toasted cheese, And made his mouth like a mousetrap.

The Irishman was drowned in usquebaugh, The Scot was drowned in ale, The Welshman he near swallowed a mouse But he pulled it out by the tail.

And, perhaps worst of all, Shakespeare, no cheese-lover, this tune in _Merry Wives of Windsor_:

'Tis time I were choked by a bit of toasted cheese.

An elaboration of the simple Welsh original went English with Dr.

William Maginn, the London journalist whose facile pen enlivened the _Blackwoods Magazine_ era with _Ten Tales_: