Laverbread
Wales
- 1 Welcome to Wales
- 2 The sound of Wales
- 3 Welsh food
- 4 Famous Welsh people
- 5 Sport
- 6 The longest place name in the world
- 7 The seven wonders of Wales
- 8 Quiz
Welsh food
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Cawl
Welsh food
Breakfast
A traditional Welsh breakfast is a big meal. In the old days it would set you up for a hard day’s work on the farm or down the mines. It’s similar to traditional cooked breakfast in England, but there are a couple of interesting differences. Fried eggs, bacon, sausage – those are the same. But instead of fried bread, fried mushrooms or fried tomatoes, you get cockles and laverbread.
Laverbread is seaweed mixed with oatmeal and then fried in bacon fat. It has to be said that it’s not to everyone’s taste. Some children even call it “snot”!
A traditional dinner
Two vegetables you often find in Welsh cooking are leeks and cabbage. Together with potatoes and carrots, they are the key ingredients in a traditional Welsh dish called cawl. It’s rather similar to Norwegian “lapskaus”.
Cawl used to be made in a big iron pot over an open fire. The ingredients varied from region to region and from season to season. You might put in some bacon, or some fish if you lived by the coast. Very often there would be some pieces of lamb. There are a lot of sheep in Wales, remember!
Do you like cooking? Why not try making some cawl? It’s cheap, tasty and easy to make. It actually tastes better if you make it the day before you’re going to eat it. Do the language exercises first. They’ll help you understand the recipe.
Your turn to cook
Use the recipe below to make some cawl. Serve the dish to your family, then write four sentences about how it went. Have fun cooking!
CAWL
Serves 4–6 persons.
Ingredients
- 1kg lamb cut into pieces
- 2 litres lamb stock
- 225g potatoes, peeled and chopped
- 225g onions, peeled and chopped
- 225g leeks, sliced into 1cm slices
- 225g carrots, peeled and chopped
- 225g swede, peeled and chopped
Preparation
- Put the lamb into a large pan. Pour over the stock.
- Boil the liquid, then reduce the heat.
- Simmer for one hour.
- Add the chopped vegetables and cook for one hour.
- Cover and cool overnight.
- Boil the cawl for 15 minutes before serving.
- Serve with bread and cheese.