English literature rings with praise for the toasted cheese of Wales and England.  There is Christopher North’s eloquent “threads of unbeaten gold, shining like gossamer filaments (that may be pulled from its tough and tenacious substance).”

Yet not all of the references are complimentary.

Thus Shakespeare in King Lear: 

    Look, look a mouse! 
    Peace, peace;—­this piece of toasted cheese will do it.

And Sydney Smith’s: 

     Old friendships are destroyed by toasted cheese, and hard salted
     meat has led to suicide.

But Khys Davis in My Wales makes up for such rudenesses: 

     The Welsh Enter Heaven

The Lord had been complaining to St. Peter of the dearth of good singers in Heaven.  “Yet,” He said testily, “I hear excellent singing outside the walls.  Why are not those singers here with me?”

     St. Peter said, “They are the Welsh.  They refuse to come in; they
     say they are happy enough outside, playing with a ball and boxing
     and singing such songs as ‘Suspan Fach’”

     The Lord said, “I wish them to come in here to sing Bach and
     Mendelssohn.  See that they are in before sundown.”

St. Peter went to the Welsh and gave them the commands of the Lord.  But still they shook their heads.  Harassed, St. Peter went to consult with St. David, who, with a smile, was reading the works of Caradoc Evans.

St. David said, “Try toasted cheese.  Build a fire just inside the gates and get a few angels to toast cheese in front of it” This St. Peter did.  The heavenly aroma of the sizzling, browning cheese was wafted over the walls and, with loud shouts, a great concourse of the Welsh came sprinting in.  When sufficient were inside to make up a male voice choir of a hundred, St Peter slammed the gates.  However, it is said that these are the only Welsh in Heaven.

And, lest we forget, the wonderful drink that made Alice grow and grow to the ceiling of Wonderland contained not only strawberry jam but toasted cheese.

Then there’s the frightening nursery rhyme: 

    The Irishman loved usquebaugh,
      The Scot loved ale called Bluecap. 
    The Welshman, he loved toasted cheese,
      And made his mouth like a mousetrap.

    The Irishman was drowned in usquebaugh,
      The Scot was drowned in ale,
    The Welshman he near swallowed a mouse
      But he pulled it out by the tail.

And, perhaps worst of all, Shakespeare, no cheese-lover, this tune in Merry Wives of Windsor: 

    ’Tis time I were choked by a bit of toasted cheese.

An elaboration of the simple Welsh original went English with Dr. William Maginn, the London journalist whose facile pen enlivened the Blackwoods Magazine era with Ten Tales: