laverbread
September 20th, 2014
A couple of months ago my friend Tim invited me to Wales for the Abergavenny Food Festival. He said he’d sort out the tickets and accommodation, so frankly it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
welsh breakfast
I arrived on Friday and was promised a full Welsh breakfast and mountain climb, the following morning, before proceeding to the first day of the festival in the afternoon. I did think the mountain might finish me off, but the breakfast and perhaps more precisely, the laverbread (bara lawr) carried me through the day and late on into the night…
Incidentally, we listened to the live Radio 4 broadcast from the Abergavenny Food Festival while we ate.
laver label
Laverbread is an ancient Welsh delicacy made from seaweed (laver). The main type of seaweed used is purple laver (Porphyra umbilicalis), actually a brownish colour, which becomes a dark green paste after washing (to remove sand) and boiling for several hours. A common method of serving laverbread is to mix it with oatmeal before frying it in cakes (see top photo). The above laver came from Penclawdd in Swansea, famous for its cockles since Roman times.
Laverbread is full of iron, iodine and vitamin B12. Supposedly it helps to lower blood pressure and cholesterol, while removing free radicals and aiding digestion. I really enjoyed the flavour, salty and savoury, reminding me of the Japanese nori seaweed used for making sushi (it is the same variety of seaweed, but prepared differently). The oats taste fairly neutral, but give the laverbread a good crunchy texture when fried (ideally with bacon or in bacon fat). It goes down very well with Welsh bacon, fried egg and Irish Clonakilty black pudding (how did that get in there?). No doubt laverbread is also good with fish. Richard Burton once described it as, “Welshman’s caviar.”
tim on the summit
By 11 O’Clock we’d circumnavigated and climbed the Skirrid (Ysgyryd Fawr) on the eastern edge of the Black Mountains. I was hoping for a good shot of Abergavenny from the mountain, but everything was shrouded in mist and I couldn’t even get a decent shot of the Skirrid itself.
misty morning
Things were brightening up as we descended and walked back to Tim’s house through fields of grass, corn and sheep. I did think several times about Cecilia’s farm in America (thekitchensgarden), as the lambs bleated and ran away from us.
By 12.30, when we got back to the house, the mist had lifted, just in time to visit the food festival…
Here’s Keith Floyd in Wales, featuring cockles, laverbread and cawl.
You always seem to go to great places and eat well. The lambs probably thought you looked hungry 🙂
Thanks Rosemary – lambs can be quite bright! The Food Festival post is coming… There are a lot of pictures, so it might be a day or two 😉
Coincidentally I spent two weeks near Hay-on-Wye in July and purchased a couple of tins of laverbread from a deli. I have not eaten it before but I was told that it is traditionally served with cockles. Do you know of a fishmongers in North London that stocks fresh cockles by any chance?! I don’t spot them in supermarkets except for the pickled/jarred variety and the mainly Turkish-run fish shops near me are not big on shellfish.
Hi Mark, you might get them in Steve Hat’s fish shop on Essex Road and if not I’m sure he’d know where to get them 😉
Thanks for the suggestion! I had not thought of Steve Hatt’s. Fortunately it’s very close by. Cheers.
I’m sure I’ve seen them somewhere recently in London, though I can’t think where. They might have them in the Islington Farmers’ Market on Sundays and almost certainly in Borough Market 😉
bloody yummy….. x
**Simon Peter Tyszko* *www.theculture.net * *www.phlight.org * *Isotopica episodes on Resonance FM* *twitter*
Thanks Simon 😉
Very interesting. I’d love to try some laver bread. A typical Welsh breakfast looks amazing. Yum. Definitely gives you strength for a climb. Gorgeous photos. And who doesn’t love a food festival. Wonderful!
Thanks Amanda. I’m sure you could make it yourself if you can find the right seaweed, it must grow around the American coasts… You can definitely buy it online, though it’s probably not cheap. The taste is very nori and familiar if you like sushi 🙂
Can’t wait to see your pics from the Abergavenny Food Festival. We were there last year and enjoyed it so much. Missed the laverbread, though, unfortunately.
Thanks Michelle. Wow I’d forgotten you went there last year. I couldn’t find a stall at the festival selling laverbread. You can buy it locally, but I think the main places for it are around the coast. I believe a good place to go is on the fish stall at the Cardiff Indoor Market 😉
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Travel-g186460-c67544/Cardiff:United-Kingdom:Eating.Welsh.In.Cardiff.html
That looks very interesting MD. The last time I was in Wales, a ferry breakdown kept us in Hollyhead for 24 hours. I still shudder at the memory.
Ha ha, it’s funny you should say that, I was on a nightmare film shoot in Crickhowell (nearby) about 14 years ago, when the weather was awful – last weekend was the first time I’ve been back since. Fortunately this weekend was so good that I’m sure I’ll be returning very much sooner now 😉
Yes, there’s more to Wales than Hollyhead. Thanks be to goodness!
Most definitely. Aside from great food, I met some lovely people this weekend 🙂
When I was a child we used to go a couple of times a year to North Wales to visit my grandfather’s family and they often tried to get me to eat laverbread….more fool me at that age for not realising what I was missing! Am curious to taste it now. Looking forward to reading more about the Food Festival and well done on the mountain climb 🙂
Thanks Tanya. It really does taste just like Japanese nori. There was a stall selling it cooked, toasted and flaked (http://www.beachfood.co.uk/shop.php) and that tasted exactly like nori, so I suspect you could rip up a couple of nori sheets, soak them in water to reconstitute them and then add oats to make laverbread… I may try that myself 😉
Ooh that’s interesting – I’ll have to leave the baking to you though until I get an oven!
No baking needed – you fry it in bacon fat 😉
I’m back and the first place I have come to visit is you. Of course I was not disappointed…I’d never heard of laverbread and now am dying to try it. Illuminating post, as usual!!!! I will try not to disappear again for so long!
Thanks Natalia, I missed you! I’m glad you like the laverbread – I imagine you are close enough to the sea to try making it… 😉
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the cake look deliciouse,.
great