Welsh Rabbit

With the release of the new Tim Burton film, Cheshire probably conjures up an image of a grinning cat with the melodious voice of Stephen Fry before one of a delicious tasty cheese.

Cheshire rarely gets the respect it deserves. It languishes in the shadow of its more famous compatriot Cheddar, a cheese that has so conquered the world its name no longer refers to a specific cheese but a technique of cheese making.

Cheshire cheese is tied to the town of Cheshire close to the Welsh border. Here cows graze on salt marshes of the river Dee and its tributaries as they have since Roman times. The Roman conquerors made cheese here, and Cheshire has a solid claim to being England’s oldest cheese. It is listed in the Domesday Book, which dates from the eleventh century, and appeared in the first cheese book published in 1477.

The Cheshire countryside is a rural oasis in the industrial northwest, and the cows produce a milk that gives the local farmhouse Cheshire a distinctive, savoury, salty taste.

Authentic farmhouse Cheshire must be made using the local, raw cow’s milk and salt, but oddly there is no regulation regarding the size or colour of the cheese. Naturally pale cream in colour, the cheese is often bright orange and can be streaked with blue. Originally carrot juice was used to colour it but since the eighteenth century annatto seeds have done the job. The blue version of Cheshire is called “green fade” because of the green colour the blue mould turns in the orange cheese.

Genuine farmhouse cheeses are tall, drum shaped wrapped in cloth and stamped with the farm number and the date of manufacture. Good Cheshire has a wonderful crumbly, moist texture with a rich, mellow, nutty taste that is slightly acidic. This acidity makes the cheese a perfect match with fruit, chutneys and a popular addition to a Ploughman’s lunch. The best cheeses are aged for 10 months to develop a more complex flavour.

Cheshire is the choice of the neighbouring Welsh for their famous Welsh rabbit. Or should that be Welsh rarebit? Most of us would probably say rarebit, but rabbit was the original name recorded in 1725. It was not until some sixty years later that the term rarebit was coined, perhaps in an attempt to distinguish this cheese based dish from the one made with the animal. But what does it have to do with the Welsh?

Notoriously fond of cheese, the Welsh have long been the butt of many jokes concerning cheese. A joke that survives from the sixteenth century suggests that given a choice between heaven and grilled cheese, the Welsh would choose cheese. Can we really say that’s the wrong choice?

There is no evidence that the Welsh invented this dish and there are many variations of rabbit; English-rabbit (with red wine), Irish-rabbit (with onions), and Buck Rabbit (with a poached egg) to name three. Even those notorious cheese lovers the French, are fond of Welsh rabbit. In France it appears on menus and in cookery books as simply Le Welsch avoiding any rabbit / rarebit controversy.

While rabbit might be correct, whatever you call this dish it is a makes a great snack or light lunch. Try England’s oldest cheese in this popular Welsh recipe that is beloved by the French.

 This simple, buttery version was inspired by the great English food writer Jane Grigson and comes from my book FAT: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient with Recipes.

Welsh Rabbit Recipe