CHEESE. 159 
we read in Pickwick what Charles Dickens thought on the 
subject : “‘ A couple of Mrs. Bardell’s most particular acquaint- 
ance had just stepped in at her house in Goswell Street to have 
a quiet cup of tea, and a little warm supper of a couple of 
sets of pettitoes, and some toasted Cheese. The said Cheese 
was simmering, and browning away most delightfully in a little 
Dutch oven before the fire, and the pettitoes were getting on 
deliciously in a little tin saucepan on the hob.” 
“ Though Welsh Rabbit be so called, yet no one knoweth well 
why ye name be added,” said Mrs. Glasse. The Welsh Rabbit, 
if it has ever been a local dish (the name may possibly be Gaelic), 
has never certainly within the knowledge, or memory of present 
man been a Welsh dish. It was a special attribute of the London 
Club House, or Tavern, of the old school. Three or four Welsh 
Rabbits apiece were a fair allowance as supper for a man of 
average appetite; and our great-grandfathers ate them, and 
went (or were carried) to bed, and slept none the worse, nor 
dreamed of gout, or dyspepsia. In those days every Tavern of 
London had its Welsh-Rabbit maker, whilst the price of this 
dish was eighteenpence. The cook brought Cheese-grater, hard 
bits of stale Cheese, thick slices of stale bread three or four days 
old, a pat of fresh butter, a mustard pot, and a gill of old ale. 
Into a clean saucepan went the ale, and it was quickly brought 
to a boiling point ; the Cheese, first grated fine, went in next, 
followed by the butter, and the mustard. For some persons 
the bread was toasted, for others merely warmed in the oven ; 
and on this the seething mass was poured, and then immediately 
placed before the eater. Such is the only genuine formula for 
making a Welsh Rabbit. A modern cookery book will order to 
‘melt slices of rich Cheese,’ evidently without knowing that 
Cheese, to be mixed thoroughly with the other ingredients, and 
to be rendered digestible by thorough cooking, must be grated. 
Slices of melted Cheese will mix with nothing, and would 
rapidly cool into a capital imitation of shoe-leather.” 
New Cheese has some acid reaction, but by degrees, as the Cheese 
ripens, this disappears. Some of the casein begins to decompose, 
and evolves ammonia, which neutralizes the acid of the Cheese ; 
likewise the fatty acids combine with the ammonia, and become 
neutral. If the fermentative ripening of Cheese goes on to actual 
putrefaction, then poisonous products become developed, and 
may be mischievously taken up into the blood. But certain 
