SC - Re: Welsh Cooking

[snowfire at mail.snet.net]

- -Poster: Elysant <Snowfire at mail.snet.net>

>            I am preparing a celtic feast in Oct. and am looking for
>recipies of welsh origan. I was wondering if you could help me.

Do you have any dishes already in mind that you need thing to work with 
or accompany?  And are you looking for main course dishes, dessert....?

Laver Bread, Cockles, Welsh Cakes, Cawl Cennin with it's period way of 
serving the meat, Bara Brith (Speckled bread)... these are very old 
dishes, although I'm still searching for documentation as to how old!  
 
A lot of the traditional Welsh dishes use lamb.  Also bacon is featured 
quite a bit. Now and again you'll see beef or veal used, or even chicken 
- - although chickens in the past were usually only eaten at Christmas.  I 
have various recipes here for stews, pies, faggots (made with pig's 
liver).  For fish you'll usually see salmon and trout (and sometimes 
herring), and for seafood we traditionally have cockles (like miniature 
clams).  We love melted cheese, and there's also the Laver Bread 
(seaweed) or as we call it "Bara Lawr".

As a side dish, two vegetables mashed together is very traditional 
(these days the most usual version of that is "Potch Erfyn" which is 
swedes and potates mashed together.  But there are other combinations 
Stwns pys - potatoes and peas, or swede/turnip and peas, and Stwns Ffa - 
potato or swede/turnip and broad beans.  Also sometimes we'll just eat 
the peas or beans (or both together) in the water from the saucepan and 
butter melted into it in the dish.  That is a traditional Sunday brunch 
dish (Faggots and Peas without the Faggots).    

For dessert, Teisen Lap and Welshcakes are the most usual traditionally, 
with Bara Brith also popular. (The recipes are all from the 
flour/sugar/egg/dried fruit/spices group of dishes seen around the 
British Isles.  Also we have pancakes.  All of these cakes are also very 
good alone with just a good cup of tea.  
 
These would comprise the range of dishes we have really.  Our food is 
bland for the most part.  If you could give me a little more focusas to 
what type of dish you're interested in, I certainly would post some 
recipes for you. Again, know that the recipes are not documentable (to 
my knowledge) as period - as old as I know they must be! ;-)

I'd be extremely curious to read what the books you have say in 
comparison with this post.  I do not have any of them, but the "Peacock" 
book is on my "to get" list!  I know it discusses Welsh cookery from the 
12th century onward if I'm not mistaken?  

YIS
Elysant
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