Welsh cuisine butter was the primary cooking medium and basis for sauces. Salt was an important ingredient in Welsh butter, but also in early Welsh cheeses, which would sit in brine during the cheesemaking process. The Welsh were also early adopters of roasting cheese. An early incarnation of Welsh rarebit was being made in medieval times, and by the middle of the 15th century rarebit was considered a national dish. The acid soil of Wales meant that the milk produced by their cattle created a soft cheese, which was not as good for roasting, so Welsh people would trade for harder cheeses
Dream of the Rarebit Fiend rarebit theme instead of tobacco, and McCay complied. The strip appeared in a "Herald" subsidiary, the "Evening Telegram", and the "Herald"s editor required McCay to use a pseudonym for the strip work to keep it separate from his other work. McCay signed "Rarebit Fiend" strips as "Silas", a name he borrowed from a neighborhood garbage cart driver. After switching to William Randolph Hearst's "New York American" newspaper in 1911, McCay dropped the "Silas" pseudonym and signed his work with his own name. McCay married in 1891, and the marriage was not a happy one. According to McCay biographer John Canemaker,