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Monkey
1/2 cup bread crumbs. 1/2 cup milk. 1 teaspoon butter. 1/2 cup grated cheese Salt and red pepper 1 egg Melt Soak the crumbs in the milk for twenty minutes. the cheese in the butter; add the seasoning; stir in the soaked bread crumbs and cook several minutes. Then add the egg, well beaten, and as soon as that is stirred in serve on toasted soda crackers.
This is a cheese "monkey" — a close cousin of Welsh rarebit, thickened with bread crumbs and egg rather than served as a pure melted-cheese sauce. The ingredient list as printed has lost part of its text, so read the method carefully before you start.
- The missing quantitiesThe method calls for bread crumbs, milk and butter that never appear in the list above; the ingredient list as it survives is incomplete and partly jumbled. Comparable recipes of the period use roughly 1 cup soft bread crumbs, 1/2 cup milk and 1 tablespoon butter to 1/2 cup grated cheese, but these are a reconstruction, not the original figures.
- The hinge: keep the heat lowOnce the beaten egg goes in, the mixture must not boil or it will curdle into cheesy scrambled egg. Work over low heat or a double boiler and pull it off as soon as it thickens, which takes under a minute.
- "Red pepper"In American books of this era red pepper means cayenne, not paprika and not a fresh chili. A pinch is enough for this quantity.
- The cheese"Grated cheese" in a household book of this sort meant a firm aged cheddar. A sharp cheddar works; pre-shredded cheese carries anti-caking starch that can make the mixture grainy, so grate your own.
- Soda crackersPlain unsalted or lightly salted saltines, toasted dry in the oven for a few minutes until crisp and just golden. Toast them while the cheese cooks — the dish sets quickly and does not wait.
- YieldOn the reconstructed quantities, roughly 1 1/2 cups of sauce, enough for two as a light supper or four as a savory over crackers. Serve immediately; it stiffens as it cools and reheats poorly.
"Monkey" is one of a small family of American chafing-dish cheese dishes -- cheese monkey, cheese dreams, golden buck, Welsh rarebit -- that flourished between about 1880 and 1920, when melted cheese on toast was a common emergency supper and a common late-evening dish for guests. The name is usually explained as a joking corruption of "rarebit" by way of the older pun on "Welsh rabbit," though that derivation is traditional rather than documented. What distinguishes the monkey from a rarebit proper is the bread crumbs and egg, which stretch a half cup of cheese further and give the sauce enough body to sit on a cracker without sliding off.