Welsh rarebit

 We went to Waitrose recently and had lunch in their café. I was surprised to see that they served Welsh rarebits. I love a good Welsh rarebit, especially on a cold day, it is comfort food at its best, so I had to try it. Especially since I hadn't had one in ages, maybe in years. Just seeing it on the menu made me crave it. It was a decent one, albeit tasting a tad too much of mustard (even though I love mustard). All the same, it's been a long time, so I enjoyed it a lot.

The Welsh Rarebit from Madame Fromage

During our time in Cardiff two months ago, we had to try an authentic Welsh rarebit. They were actually not that easy to find and we only had it once. But it was one hell of a Welsh rarebit, as you can see on the picture. With a little pot of chutney to make it more filling and tastier, but I think it tasted even better without the chutney. we ate it at Madame Fromage (a very Welsh name). It was really tasty and properly filling like a proper Welsh rarebit should be.

Buck Rarebit

Here is a little food porn post, just for the sake of it. When my parents came to visit, I made them discover the Welsh rarebit, the classic British comfort food that I love so much and that I often crave these days. If they ever had prejudice against food on this part of the world, they don't have it anymore. But anyway, it struck me that what I truly prefer is the variant of the recipe that adds an egg on top of it, called a buck rarebit (and which I blogged about here). For practical and greedy reasons: the egg adds some extra proteins, for one, but also it gives the rarebit far more flavour, especially with a warm runny yolk. So the buck rarebit is now my dish of predilection when I want to order a quick lunch in a restaurant or a café.

Craving a Welsh rarebit

The Ticklers would think again that I am food obsessed and I guess they would be right. All the same, these days it is cold and nasty outside and it puts me in the mood for some hearty food and I am really, really, really hungry for a Welsh rarebit. This one I had in October, I think the last one I ate was in November, always at the same local café. I am food obsessed and a man of habit. And I thought I might share my obsession on this blog tonight.

Welsh rarebits and supernatural encounters

You probably wonder where I am getting at with today's countdown to Halloween post. So I am reading this book of horror stories by F. Marion Crawford and yesterday I reread in it The Upper Berth. And I was surprised to find not one but two mentions of Welsh rarebit, which is one of my favourite British comfort food. (By the way, you can read about it on this blog here and here.) After his first encounter with what appears to be a ghost, the skeptical narrator rationalizes it this way: "Still I doubted my senses, and pulled myself together. It was absurd, I thought. The Welsh rarebit I had eaten had disagreed with me. I had been in a nightmare." And then, before further investigating the matter, he says this: "I abstained from Welsh rarebits and grog that evening, and did not even join in the customary game of whist. I wanted to be quite sure of my nerves, and my vanity made me anxious to make a good figure in the captain's eyes." So there you have it, Welsh rarebit may have hallucinogenic properties. All the same, it made me hungry for it and when we went for lunch today with my parents-in-law, I ordered one.

Welsh rarebit with a twist

I blogged before about Welsh rarebits, one of my favourite pieces of British gastronomy and my favourite comfort food. Well, I renewed today with the dish in a local café, although one of its variants: the Buck rarebit. It has a poached egg added on it and that is the only difference. The egg is not absolutely necessary, although I love the taste of warm yolk on a toast, but as usual it is the melted cheese that makes the rarebit so delicious. Rarebits are best appreciated on a cold day, which was not the case today, but all the same it was not too hot to spoil the experience and it was nice rediscovering the dish, as I haven't had one in ages. My wife thought I was embarrassing taking yet another picture of my meal for the blog, but I wanted to share it here, just for the sake of it. So here it is.

Welsh rarebit

The Brits will easily identify the dish on this picture, Welsh rarebit, which is one of the great, great gastronomical discoveries I've made in my years in this country. I know it is only a glorified grilled cheese sandwich, but it is delicious all the same, especially on a cold day, like it was then and like it is now. This particular Welsh rarebit was ordered by my wife in the No Car Cafe in the middle of nowhere in Derbyshire, where we went the first weekend of October to visit her childhood friend and her husband. I made the mistake to order something else, a bagel with smoked salmon. Which was not bad, for a not-Montreal bagel, but I should have stuck with what the Brits do best. Anyway, as it is the weekend and it is a tradition on this blog to plug a dish from somewhere, here is the Welsh rarebit she had. If you visit this country, I recommend that you try it at least once.