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 and had McCay give up comic strips in favor of editorial cartooning. McCay revived the strip in 1923–1925 as "Rarebit Reveries", of which few examples have survived. A number of film adaptations of "Rarebit Fiend" have appeared, including Edwin S. Porter's live-action "Dream of a Rarebit Fiend" in 1906, and four pioneering animated films by McCay himself: "How a Mosquito Operates" in 1912, and 1921's "Bug Vaudeville", "The Pet", and "The Flying House". The strip is said to have anticipated a number of recurring ideas in popular culture, such as marauding giant beasts damaging cities—as later popularized by "King Kong"