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  • 2021-06-11 (xsd:date)
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  • What Are Welsh Rabbit and Welsh Rarebit? (en)
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  • One of the more puzzling etymological mysteries in the culinary world is a dual one: how a dish that contains no rabbit meat whatsoever came to be called Welsh rabbit, and how that name mutated into the even more improbable form of 'Welsh rarebit.' Welsh rabbit/rarebit is simply toasted bread topped with a melted cheese mixture. It contains no meat whatsoever, rabbit or otherwise. So, why is it known as Welsh rabbit, especially given that no particular evidence suggests that cheese on toast originated with Welsh cuisine? No one knows the origins of the name for sure, although the most commonly advanced theory is that was a derogatory English term poking fun at the Welsh, supposedly because they were so impoverished that they couldn't afford even lowly rabbit meat for food, or they were so culturally uncivilized that they thought eating cheese on toast was just as good as having rabbit, i.e., only people as poor and stupid as the Welsh would eat cheese and call it rabbit, or the closest thing to rabbit the Welsh could afford was melted cheese on toast. Much debate has taken place over whether Welsh rarebit was a corruption of Welsh rabbit or whether it was the other way around. Linguistic evidence suggests the former, as the Oxford English Dictionary records the first known print use of Welsh rabbit as occurring in 1725, while the rarebit form isn't known to have shown up in print until 1781. How the name transitioned from Welsh rabbit to rarebit is also a matter of speculation rather than fact. Various theories claim that the Welsh (or possibly the English) altered the name to eradicate its implied slur, or that restaurateurs altered it either to avoid confusing unfamiliar customers or to create an exotic-sounding menu item that could be sold to such customers for a premium price. How such a humble dish — one which is consumed in many parts of the world— came to be named for the Welsh is yet another mystery. It may be, as suggested in one trivia book published in 1849, that the association was simply due to a common practice of foodstuffs' being dubbed with geographic names referencing places where they were especially popular or particularly well known: (en)
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