Among modern sins of omission, the Worcestershire sauce is left out by braggarts who aver that they can take it or leave it.  And, in these degenerate days, when it comes to substitutions for the original beer or stale pale ale, we find the gratings of great Cheddars wet down with mere California sherry or even ginger ale—­yet so far, thank goodness, no Cokes.  And there’s tomato juice out of a can into the Rum Turn Tiddy, and sometimes celery soup in place of milk or cream.

In view of all this, we can only look to the standard cookbooks for salvation.  These are mostly compiled by women, our thoughtful mothers, wives and sweethearts who have saved the twin Basic Rabbits for us.  If it weren’t for these Fanny Farmers, the making of a real aboriginal Welsh Rabbit would be a lost art—­lost in sporting male attempts to improve upon the original.

The girls are still polite about the whole thing and protectively pervert the original spelling of “Rabbit” to “Rarebit” in their culinary guides.  We have heard that once a club of ladies in high society tried to high-pressure the publishers of Mr. Webster’s dictionary to change the old spelling in their favor.  Yet there is a lot to be said for this more genteel and appetizing rendering of the word, for the Welsh masterpiece is, after all, a very rare bit of cheesemongery, male or female.

Yet in dealing with “Rarebits” the distaff side seldom sets down more than the basic Adam and Eve in a whole Paradise of Rabbits:  No. 1, the wild male type made with beer, and No. 2, the mild female made with milk.  Yet now that the chafing dish has come back to stay, there’s a flurry in the Rabbit warren and the new cooking encyclopedias give up to a dozen variants.  Actually there are easily half a gross of valid ones in current esteem.

The two basic recipes are differentiated by the liquid ingredient, but both the beer and the milk are used only one way—­warm, or anyway at room temperature.  And again for the two, there is but one traditional cheese—­Cheddar, ripe, old or merely aged from six months onward.  This is also called American, store, sharp, Rabbit, yellow, beer, Wisconsin Longhorn, mouse, and even rat.

The seasoned, sapid Cheddar-type, so indispensable, includes dozens of varieties under different names, regional or commercial.  These are easily identified as sisters-under-the-rinds by all five senses: 

     sight:  Golden yellow and mellow to the eye.  It’s one of those
     round cheeses that also tastes round in the mouth.

hearing:  By thumping, a cheese-fancier, like a melon-picker, can tell if a Cheddar is rich, ripe and ready for the Rabbit.  When you hear your dealer say, “It’s six months old or more,” enough said.

     smell:  A scent as fresh as that of the daisies and herbs the
     mother milk cow munched “will hang round it still.”  Also a slight
     beery savor.