How are Welsh rarebit, cheese nightmares, and early animation connected?
Have you ever wondered whether cheese really causes nightmares? It was a popular idea in the early 20th century thanks to the popularity of Welsh rarebit. So, in this video, I explore how the connection between Welsh rarebit and nightmares resulted in cartoons and animated films, capturing our imagination ever since.
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Video on Welsh Rabbit: • Why is cheese on toast called Welsh R...
Read Maginn’s “Welsh Rabbits”: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60294
Read Cummins’ Welsh Rarebit Tales here: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/... Or listen to the audiobook here: • Welsh Rarebit Tales by Harle Oren Cum... or here: https://librivox.org/welsh-rarebit-ta...
Links to McCay’s animated films (all public domain):
“Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics” or “Little Nemo”: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
“How a Mosquito Operates”: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
“Bug Vaudeville”: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
“The Pet”: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
“The Flying House”: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Sources
Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery. London, Paris & New York: Cassell Petter & Galpin, 1892.
"Sweet Dreams Are Made of Cheese." Daily Mail, 12 September 2005.
Ainsworth, William Harrison, ed. Bentley's Miscellany (Volume 11). Vol. 11. London: Richard Bentley, 1842.
Canemaker, John. Winsor Mccay: His Life and Art. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2018.
Cummins, Harle Oren. Welsh Rarebit Tales. Boston: Mutual Book Company, 1902.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol: In Prose Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843.
Dictionary, Oxford English. Virago, N., Sense 2.A.Oxford University Press, 2024.
Elias, Megan J. Food in the Untied States, 1890-1945. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009.
Glasse, Hannah. The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy; Which Far Exceeds Any Thing of the Kind Ever yet Published. London: Printed for the author, and sold at Mrs. Ashburn's, a china shop, the corner of Fleet-Ditch, 1747.
McCay, Winsor. Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1905.
Nielsen, Tore and Russell A. Powell. "Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: Food and Diet as Instigators of Bizarre and Disturbing Dreams." 6 (2015).
Oates, Caroline. "Cheese Gives You Nightmares: Old Hags and Heartburn." In Folklore, 114, 205, 2003.
Robinson, Henry W. and Walter Adams, eds. The Diary of Robert Hooke, 1672-1680: Transcribed from the Original in the Possession of the Corporation of the City of London (Guildhall Library). London: Wykeham Publications, 1935.
Rundell, Maria Eliza Ketelby. A New System of Domestic Cookery : Formed Upon Principles of Economy and Adapted to the Use of Private Families. London: J. Murray and J. Harding, 1806.
———. A New System of Domestic Cookery; Formed Upon Principles of Enonomy, and Adapted to the Use of Private Families. London: John Murray, 1810.
Images
Portrait of Charles Dickens by Jeremiah Gurney (public domain)
Portrait of Winsor McCay, 1906 (public domain)
Print of William Maginn by Daniel Maclise (public domain)
Welsh rarebit by Jeremy Keith, CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons
Welsh Rarebit Tales cover, via Project Gutenberg (public domain)
00:00 Intro
00:27 Why is Welsh rarebit connected with nightmares?
01:17 Why was Welsh rarebit so popular in the early 1900s?
05:08 What earlier stories connect cheese and nightmares?
10:29 How did early animation bring these nightmares to life?
13:52 Is there any evidence for cheese causing nightmares?
18:16 Thanks for watching
#rarebit #cheese #cheesehistory
