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Mock Welsh Rarebit
3 tablespoonfuls butter 1/4 tablespoonful flour I well-beaten egg cup cheese cup cold water 1/3 cup milk 1 teaspoonful salt cup white breadcrumbs Toasted crackers
The text as printed is an ingredient list stripped of its method, and the fractions have been lost in transcription — every "cup" that reads bare was almost certainly a fraction. Treat the amounts below as a reconstruction guide rather than gospel.
- The missing fractions"cup cheese," "cup cold water," "4 cup milk" and "cup white breadcrumbs" have all lost their numerators somewhere between the printed page and this text. From comparable rarebits of the period, a half cup each of grated cheese, water and milk and a half cup of soft crumbs will behave correctly; the "4 cup milk" is most likely 1/4 cup. Nothing in the printed page settles it.
- SaltA full teaspoonful of salt against half a cup of cheese is high by modern palates. Start with a quarter teaspoon and correct at the end, since the cheese carries most of the seasoning.
- The hinge: keep it below a simmerThis is a thickened cheese sauce bound with egg. Make the butter-and-flour roux, add the water and milk, cook it smooth, then take the pan off direct heat before the cheese and the beaten egg go in. Boiling after the egg is added will curdle it and boiling after the cheese is added makes it stringy and greasy.
- Why the breadcrumbs are hereThe crumbs are the "mock" part — they stretch a small quantity of cheese and give body. Use soft fresh crumbs from the interior of stale bread, not dried or toasted crumbs, which stay gritty.
- Cheese to useRarebits of the period usually called for a firm, sharp cheese, an aged cheddar or a Cheshire type, though many simply say "cheese." Grate it fine so it melts before the sauce has a chance to overheat. Pre-shredded cheese carries anti-caking starch and thickens the sauce unpredictably.
- ServingPoured over toasted crackers or toast, this yields roughly two generous servings or four small ones. It must go to table immediately; on standing the crumbs swell and the mixture stiffens to a paste.
Welsh rarebit — the older spelling is "rabbit," and the name is generally taken as an English joke at Welsh expense, the melted cheese standing in for the game a poor household could not get. "Mock" versions like this one belong to the same tradition of names promising more than the pan holds, and the addition of breadcrumbs and egg to eke out a half cup of cheese is exactly the logic of a left-overs cookbook: stale bread is not waste but a thickener, a filler and a structural ingredient. Books of this kind proliferated in Britain and America from the 1890s through the two world wars, when domestic economy was taught as a subject and a cook was judged partly on how little she threw away. The rarebit itself was a chafing-dish staple of the era, cooked at the table over a spirit lamp, which is one reason so many versions warn against letting it boil.