Cheese on toast or grilled with the cheese), brown sauce or ketchup. Pickled cucumber, Branston pickle, fried tomatoes, fried eggs, Worcestershire sauce and baked beans are also common. Another common variation is to add something to the toast before applying the cheese, such as tomato, or a thin layer of spread Marmite, Vegemite (in Australia), cream spread, mustard or tomato ketchup. Recipe books and internet articles tend to elaborate on the basics, adding ingredients and specifying accompaniments to make more interesting reading. Consequently, published recipes seldom deal with the most basic form of the dish and frequently refer to the similar dish of
Dream of the Rarebit Fiend strip. Despite the strip's bleak view, McCay's work was so popular that William Randolph Hearst hired him in 1911 with a star's salary. Hearst editor Arthur Brisbane deemed McCay's work "serious, not funny", and had the cartoonist give up his comic strips (including "Rarebit Fiend" and "Nemo") to work full-time illustrating editorials. Scholars such as Claude Moliterni, Ulrich Merkl, Alfredo Castelli, and others have hunted down what they believe to have influenced McCay's work on "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend". Among the possible influences are Edward Lear's popular "The Book of Nonsense" (1870), Gelett Burgess' "The Burgess Nonsense Book" (1901),