Porphyra umbilicalis,’Bara lawr’, ‘the Welshman’s caviar’. A dark green – or is it red? – or pink or deep brown?[1] – seaweed that is simultaneously the crowning joy and sharpest point of division of all Welsh foods. Crowning joy, because this is a true delicacy, with a deep umami flavour and a rich, smooth texture that fills your mouth. Sharp point of division, because like Marmite, this is a love-it-or-hate-it foodstuff, shunned and adored in equal measure even within the same family.
Laver bread, properly speaking, is the finished product made with laver, the seaweed itself. It is a native to rocks on all the westward shores of the British Isles;
Laver grows near the high-water mark of the intertidal zone in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It grows best in cold nitrogen-rich water.[2]
It is one of the major plant-based sources of vitamin B12, and has a high content of a number of dietary minerals, with concentrations of both iron and iodine particularly high. (The iodine is what gives it the characteristic umami flavour akin to oysters or olives).[3] And its marine riches have been appreciated for a long time in Wales.
An old spring ritual
We don’t know when people first started harvesting and using laver in Wales. But Gerald of Wales mentions its use in Pembrokeshire in the 12th century. William Camden, writing in Britannia in 1607 gives us a more detailed account of how the weed was harvested in springtime:
“Near St Davids, especially at Eglwys Abernon, and in many other places along the Pembrokeshire Coast, the peasantry gather in the Spring time a kind of Alga or seaweed, where they made a sort of food called lhavan or llawvan, in English, black butter. The seaweed is washed clean from the sand, and sweated between two tile stones. The weed is then shred small and well-kneaded, as they do dough for bread, and made up into great balls or rolls, which some eat raw, and others fry with oatmeal and butter”.[4]
In more recent times, and certainly by the early 19th century, a cottage industry had grown up on the Burry Inlet and the Loughor estuary between Gower and Llanelli, and laver was a mainstay at nearby Swansea market. Oral memories captured by Minwel Tibbot in the 1920s from elderly people who could recall the 1850s give us recipes from Cardiganshire and South Pembrokeshire, and the accompanying note: ‘the most common method of cooking laverbread in the counties of South Wales was to fry it in bacon fat and serve it with bacon, usually for breakfast’[5]. Freeman also has a recipe from a cookery book published in 1808 after the compiler, Mrs Maria Rundell, had visited Swansea. The recommendation here is that ‘after roasting. Welsh mutton used to be dished with the piping hot laver ‘bread’ mixed with Seville Orange juice’.[6]
Versatile
Laver must be boiled for a good 10 hours before it can be used as food. Traditionally in Wales this boiling is done with a little salt, and it continues until you have a greeny-black puree.[7] Suffice to say, to the uninitiated it is not the most appetising of foods in appearance at this point.
But from here, a huge array of possibilities present themselves. Traditionally, this included making the lave into little cakes fried with oatmeal and eaten with bacon and cockles, or using it as delicious tangy spread on toast. It was also commonly made into ‘cawl lafwr’ (a stew or soup) and was even served as a condiment with mutton and lamb. More recent recipes include laverbread quiche,[8] laverbread pasta[9], laver sauce to accompany crab[10], or even as a salad[11].
Living tradition
A few companies harvest laver in southern Wales commercially today. Interviews with some of those modern-day inheritors of the old tradition will, hopefully, be appearing on the website soon….
[1] Known to vary in colour across this spectrum: https://www.britannica.com/science/laver
[2] https://www.britannica.com/science/laver
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyra
[4] https://www.beachfood.co.uk/blog/The+Story+of+Laver+Seaweed+in+Wales
[5] Tibbot, 66
[6] Freeman, 170
[7]https://www.beachfood.co.uk/blog/LAVER+SEAWEED+ONE+of+the+FOOD+WONDERS+OF+THE+WORLD
[8] http://www.laverbread.com/laverbread-recipes/#lquiche
[9] https://www.countryfile.com/countryfile-tv-show/helen-skelton-silage-seaweed-and-sup/
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laverbread
[11] http://www.gallowaywildfoods.com/laver-seaweed-edibility-identification-distribution/