And after the
second or third helping of pudding, with a pint of stout, bitter, or
the mildest and mellowest brown October Ale in a dented pewter pot,
"the stewed Cheshire cheese."
Cheese was the one and only other course prescribed by tradition and
appetite from the time when Charles II aled and regaled Nell Gwyn at
"The Cheese," where Shakespeare is said to have sampled this "kind of
a glorified Welsh Rarebit, served piping hot in the square shallow
tins in which it is cooked and garnished with sippets of delicately
colored toast."
Among early records is this report of Addison's in _The Spectator_ of
September 25,1711:
They yawn for a Cheshire cheese, and begin about midnight, when
the whole company is disposed to be drowsy. He that yawns widest,
and at the same time so naturally as to produce the most yawns
amongst his spectators, carries home the cheese.
Only a short time later, in 1725, the proprietor of Simpson's in the
Strand inaugurated a daily guessing contest that drew crowds to his
fashionable eating and drinking place.
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