The Complete Book of Cheese Part 8

[Ill.u.s.tration] Dr. Maginn's Rabbit

Much is to be said in favor of toasted cheese for supper. It is the cant to say that Welsh rabbit is heavy eating. I like it best in the genuine Welsh way, however--that is, the toasted bread b.u.t.tered on both sides profusely, then a layer of cold roast beef with mustard and horseradish, and then, on the top of all, the superstratum, of Cheshire _thoroughly_ saturated, while, in the process of toasting, with genuine porter, black pepper, and shallot vinegar. I peril myself upon the a.s.sertion that this is not a heavy supper for a man who has been busy all day till dinner in reading, writing, walking or riding--who has occupied himself between dinner and supper in the discussion of a bottle or two of sound wine, or any equivalent--and who proposes to swallow at least three tumblers of something hot ere he resigns himself to the embrace of Somnus. With these provisos, I recommend toasted cheese for supper.

The popularity of this has come down to us in the succinct summing-up, "Toasted cheese hath no master."

The Welsh original became simple after Dr. Maginn's supper sandwich was served, a century and a half ago; for it was served as a savory to sum up and help digest a dinner, in this form:

After-Dinner Rabbit

Remove all crusts from bread slices, toast on both sides and soak to saturation in hot beer. Melt thin slices of sharp old cheese in b.u.t.ter in an iron skillet, with an added spot of beer and dry English mustard. Stir steadily with a wooden spoon and, when velvety, serve a-sizzle on piping hot beer-soaked toast.

While toasted cheese undoubtedly was the Number One dairy dish of Anglo-Saxons, stewed cheese came along to rival it in Elizabethan London. This sophisticated, big-city dish, also called a Buck Rabbit, was the making of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street, where Dr.

Johnson later presided. And it must have been the pick of the town back in the days when barrooms still had sawdust on the floor, for the learned Doctor endorsed old Omar Khayyam's love of the pub with: "There is nothing which has been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern." Yet he was no gourmet, as may be judged by his likening of a succulent, golden-fried oyster to "a baby's ear dropped in sawdust."

Perhaps it is just as well that no description of the world's first Golden Buck has come down from him. But we don't have to look far for on-the-spot pen pictures by other men of letters at "The Cheese," as it was affectionately called. To a man they sang praises for that piping hot dish of preserved and beatified milk.

Inspired by stewed cheese, Mark Lemon, the leading rhymester of _Punch_, wrote the following poem and dedicated it to the memory of Lovelace:

Champagne will not a dinner make, Nor caviar a meal Men gluttonous and rich may take Those till they make them ill If I've potatoes to my chop, And after chop have cheese, Angels in Pond and Spiers's shop Know no such luxuries.

All that's necessary is an old-time "cheese stewer" or a reasonable subst.i.tute. The base of this is what was once quaintly called a "hot-water bath." This was a sort of miniature wash boiler just big enough to fit in snugly half a dozen individual tins, made squarish and standing high enough above the bath water to keep any of it from getting into the stew. In these tins the cheese is melted. But since such a tinsmith's contraption is hard to come by in these days of fireproof cooking gla.s.s, we suggest m.u.f.fin tins, ramekins or even small cups to crowd into the bottom of your double boiler or chafing dish. But beyond this we plump for a revival of the "cheese stewer" in stainless steel, silver or gla.s.s.

In the ritual at "The Cheese," these dishes, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over, "bubbling and blistering with the stew," followed a pudding that's still famous.

Although down the centuries the recipe has been kept secret, the identifiable ingredients have been itemized as follows: "Tender steak, savory oyster, seductive kidney, fascinating lark, rich gravy, ardent pepper and delicate paste"--not to mention mushrooms. And after the second or third helping of pudding, with a pint of stout, bitter, or the mildest and mellowest brown October Ale in a dented pewter pot, "the stewed Cheshire cheese."

Cheese was the one and only other course prescribed by tradition and appet.i.te from the time when Charles II aled and regaled Nell Gwyn at "The Cheese," where Shakespeare is said to have sampled this "kind of a glorified Welsh Rarebit, served piping hot in the square shallow tins in which it is cooked and garnished with sippets of delicately colored toast."

Among early records is this report of Addison's in _The Spectator_ of September 25,1711:

They yawn for a Cheshire cheese, and begin about midnight, when the whole company is disposed to be drowsy. He that yawns widest, and at the same time so naturally as to produce the most yawns amongst his spectators, carries home the cheese.

Only a short time later, in 1725, the proprietor of Simpson's in the Strand inaugurated a daily guessing contest that drew crowds to his fashionable eating and drinking place. He would set forth a huge portion of cheese and wager champagne and cigars for the house that no one present could correctly estimate the weight, height and girth of it.

As late as 1795, when Boswell was accompanying Dr. Johnson to "The Cheese," records of St. Dunstan's Club, which also met there, showed that the current price of a Buck Rabbit was tuppence, and that this was also the amount of the usual tip.

Ye Original Recipe

1-1/2 ounces b.u.t.ter 1 cup cream 1-1/2 cups grated Cheshire cheese (more pungent, snappier, richer, and more brightly colored than its first cousin, Cheddar)

Heat b.u.t.ter and cream together, then stir in the cheese and let it stew.

You dunk fingers of toast directly into your individual tin, or pour the Stewed Rabbit over toast and brown the top under a blistering salamander.

The salamander is worth modernizing, too, so you can brand your own Rabbits with your monogram or the design of your own Rabbitry. Such a branding iron might be square, like the stew tin, and about the size of a piece of toast

It is notable that there is no beer or ale in this recipe, but not lamentable, since all aboriginal cheese toasts were washed down in tossing seas of ale, beer, porter, stout, and 'arf and 'arf.

This creamy Stewed Buck, on which the literary greats of Johnson's time supped while they smoked their church wardens, received its highest praise from an American newspaper woman who rhapsodized in 1891: "Then came stewed cheese, on the thin shaving of crisp, golden toast in hot silver saucers--so hot that the cheese was the substance of thick cream, the flavor of purple pansies and red raspberries commingled."

This may seem a bit flowery, but in truth many fine cheeses hold a trace of the bouquet of the flowers that have enriched the milk.

Alpine blooms and herbs haunt the Gruyere, Parmesan wafts the scent of Parma violets, the Flower Cheese of England is perfumed with the petals of rose, violet, marigold and jasmine.

Oven Rabbit (FROM AN OLD RECIPE)

Chop small 1/2 pound of cooking cheese. Put it, with a piece of b.u.t.ter the size of a walnut, in a little saucepan, and as the b.u.t.ter melts and the cheese gets warm, mash them together,

When softened add 2 yolks of eggs, 1/2 teacupful of ale, a little cayenne pepper and salt. Stir with a wooden spoon one way only, until it is creamy, but do not let it boil, for that would spoil it. Place some slices of b.u.t.tered toast on a dish, pour the Rarebit upon them, and set inside-the oven about 2 minutes before serving.

Yorkshire Rabbit _(originally called Gherkin Buck, from a pioneer recipe_)

Put into a saucepan 1/2 pound of cheese, sprinkle with pepper (black, of course) to taste, pour over 1/2 teacup of ale, and convert the whole into a smooth, creamy ma.s.s, over the fire, stirring continually, for about 10 minutes.

In 2 more minutes it should be done. (10 minutes altogether is the minimum.) Pour it over slices of hot toast, place a piece of broiled bacon on the top of each and serve as hot as possible.

Golden Buck

A Golden Buck is simply the Basic Welsh Rabbit with beer (No. 1) plus a poached egg on top. The egg, sunny side up, gave it its shining name a couple of centuries ago. Nowadays some chafing dish show-offs try to gild the Golden Buck with dashes of ginger and spice.

Golden Buck II

This is only a Golden Buck with the addition of bacon strips.

The Venerable Yorkshire Buck

Spread 1/2-inch slices of bread with mustard and brown in hot oven. Then moisten each slice with 1/2 gla.s.s of ale, lay on top a slice of cheese 1/4-inch thick, and 2 slices of bacon on top of that. Put back in oven, cook till cheese is melted and the bacon crisp, and serve piping hot, with tankards of cold ale.

Bacon is the thing that identifies any Yorkshire Rabbit.

Yale College Welsh Rabbit (MORIARTY'S)

1 jigger of beer 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon black pepper 1/4 teaspoon mustard 1-1/2 cups grated or shaved cheese More beer

Pour the jigger of beer into "a low saucepan," dash on the seasonings, add the cheese and stir unremittingly, moistening from time to time with more beer, a pony or two at a time.

When creamy, pour over b.u.t.tered toast (2 slices for this amount) and serve with still more beer.

There are two schools of postgraduate Rabbit-hunters: Yale, as above, with beer both in the Rabbit and with it; and the other featured in the Stieff Recipe, which prefers leaving it out of the Rabbit, but taps a keg to drink with it.

The ancient age of Moriarty's campus cla.s.sic is registered by the use of pioneer black pepper in place of white, which is often used today and is thought more sophisticated by some than the red cayenne of Rector's Naughty Nineties Chafing Dish Rabbit, which is precisely the same as our Basic Recipe No. 1.