Welsh rarebit is sorta the missing link between toasted (or roasted, or grilled, whatever you’re having yourself) cheese and cheese sauce. Not so much a velouté or béchamel flavoured with cheese, as cheese with roux and liquid to bind the cheese. (And blot up the fat, if we’re going to be unappetisingly candid about it.) So for flavour note purposes a lot of the same sort of thinking applies, IMO: worcester sauce, mustard, chili, etc.
Two popular regional sports in this archipelago are:-
- Being outraged at Americans, etc, if they refer to our little bit incorrectly (or other than we prefer); and,
- Referring to other bits of These Islands in a way that enrages them.
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Throughout the UK and beyond!
While personally I’d tend to go with your usage, that it’s “rarebit” if cooked with added liquid and flour, and “toasted cheese with notions of itself” if fancied up otherwise, this is fairly fuzzy culinary and linguistic territory. Bit like, when does “beans on toast” graduate to “jazzy beans”.
In particular that distinction is {{not in citation given}}, as Glasse’s Welsh rabbit was just toasted cheese, and maybe add some mustard. if anything her English rabbit is taking a step closer, as it chucks in some booze, but fails to make the “wine velouté” conceptual breakthrough, and goes the “soggy bread” route instead.
I’m tempted to speculate her cookbook wasn’t really doing ‘regional cooking’, even in the minimal sense that you could just about argue that Full English/Scottish/Welsh/Ireland Breakfasts are somewhat locally distinct dishes. It reads more like a ‘three men go into a pub, only the English fellow was able to afford more than bread and cheese, hahaha’ jocosity, if anything.
I had sort of forgotten about the whole Tillamook issues. Thanks alot for the reminder (/s). Convenient forgetfulness on my part, I’m sure. The large dairy takeover in Oregon (the country in general really) is problematic to say the least. Of course they don’t make all that cheese from those coastal cows. I doubt they could supply the large amount of Tillamook cheese stocked at my local Costco alone. Any cheese supplier of its size is bound to have practices I would frown on.
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Have you tried the cheddar? I ask because I am pretty sure they are close to you. Don’t they have a tasting room in Ashland? I used to buy their blues at the PSU Farmers market but I don’t remember their cheddar. I’ll keep my eye out for it.
They’re certainly not all coastal – from their website, they have a cheese factory at Boardman on the Columbia River, which is supplied by a bijou little 30,000 cow, 93,000 acres facility, Threemile Canyon Farms.
That’s just from a quick look, not any position statement on where they stand on the Problematic Dairy Issues continuum
Nevermind
This not being a topic I was at all familiar with, I did a little more googling, and I came across this:-
Which sorta gets into the weeds of what’s “Big” food, and what’s not. Seems like the sort of vague claim that might lead people to believe it was pasture-fed (when evidently it mostly isn’t). Or invite them to guess at some sort of animal-welfare standard other than the one actually applied.
Many Irish dairy consumers (possibly in both possible brackettings of that) seem to have a vague impression that Irish dairy and beef are grass-fed superfoods, and – say – British equivalents are inedible filth. Before we even get onto US farming practices! But not a claim you’ll actually see concretely on a product or in official marketing materials, since it generally isn’t entirely pasture-fed. (It is largely so, but then so is British.)
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Sounds like fondue which typically involves some wine and some cornstarch, but mostly cheese.
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Somewhere not a million miles away in the cheese-liquid-thickener parameter space. And the liquid is not infrequently a boozy one (if it’s not milk), so white wine isn’t a huge deviation, either. To generalise sweepingly, I’d think rarebit would be even more cheese-heavy a mixture in comparison, as you essentially want a thick paste texture rather than a dipping one.
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I think that’s when you add ketchup, mustard and a shake of Lea & Perrins.
I also think I might try to argue that the “Full” regional breakfasts are sufficiently distinct to be, erm, distinct. Haggis in the Full Scottish, or bubble & squeak in the Full London. You might find those regional differences outside the region but it’s fairly rare, in my experience. But we digress from cheese.
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I’ve just been on to Tillamook’s site to order some of the 2011 you enjoyed so much. I’m intrigued by you saying it trumped Keens, which has long been my favourite. Alas they don’t ship to the UK!
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They’re only selling it at the creamery, our farmers markets, and online.
I’ll try and investigate this week.
I was looking to post the Rogue cheddars, which we get locally. I don’t know how far and wide the distribution is though.
They mostly have an extra ingredient component.
https://roguecreamery.com/product-category/individual-cheeses/cheddars/
We toured their creamery once, which was delightful, and were able to sample all the cheeses. We all had our favorites. And then a few years ago I learned that they paired with Whole Foods to do a special blue that only WF could sell. Basically a blue soaked in wine. Red wine the first year, white wine a couple years later. I think they only sell it around the holidays. WF does a “12 days of cheese” sale at Christmas, and between that (each day a single cheese is 50%) and the Prime discount, I was getting a killer deal on a fabulous small wheel of cheese. Once a year! I think all the discounts took it to about $13/lb. Give or take.
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I’ve had Coastal cheddar, and although it’s very good for the price, IMO it’s not nearly as sharp as the 10-year Tillamook. It’s been a while though. I agree that the non-aged (or young) Tillamook cheddar is just an average cheese.
Several years ago I had another product from Ford Farm – their “Seaside Smoked Cheddar”, which was a very nice product – I especially liked the pieces that had more “rind”. In this case, “rind” meant any edge to which smoke was directly applied – it was all quite edible.
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I will have to search around for the 10 yr Tillamook cheddar and do a taste test. I’ve never been a fan of smoked cheese. The only kind I’ve enjoyed is actually from Rogue Creamery. They call it a smokey blue, and it is smoked over hazelnut shells.
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Probably, but I used to eat it at a pub in Boston when I was young (cheap eats). They made it on barely grilled white bread and the cheese sauce was thinner than fondue.
It looked kinda’ like this…
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I haven’t seen that smoked cheddar in a while anyway. If you have a Whole Foods nearby, that’s by far your best bet for the 10-year Tillamook, especially if you get it before the end of the month. Right now it’s $19/lb, but the 'monger there told me it will revert to $30/lb in June (vs $23/per 8oz from the creamery, plus shipping!). Sounds like WF has a store exclusive on it. See the article that bbqboy posted upthread.
I too like that smoked blue from Rogue.
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I’m surprised WF buys it if the articles are right and the milk is from conventionally raised cows at factory farms. They used to insist on “pledges” from their vendors about sustainability, safety, growth hormones, blah, blah. Maybe like Tillamook they’re now too big to check… or care?
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Or maybe Whole Foods has crossed over that border and is too big to care? Not saying they are; just food for thought.
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