Lava Bread and Cockles

[Carrot Top]

I just came across mention of lava bread and cockles while searching something else.

It certainly sparked my interest.

Here are two links:

Welsh Icons - Lava Bread

Laverbread (Welsh: Bara Lawr) is a traditional Welsh delicacy made from the seaweed laver.

Laver is used traditionally in the Welsh diet and still eaten widely across Wales in the form of laverbread. The seaweed is boiled for several hours: the gelatinous paste that results is then rolled in oatmeal and fried. Laverbread is traditionally eaten fried with bacon and cockles for breakfast.

The Secret Life of Cockles

Trying to find a proper plate of cockles in this country is a challenge; in Morecambe, a town that needs a shot of civic Prozac, I could not even find a decent-looking (or open) chip shop. Roughly speaking, the places that do sell cockles fall into two camps: rickety caravans that sell piles of cockles in vinegar; and a few (a very few) upmarket, ultra-fashionable joints that are in the business of reinventing British food.

Has anyone here ever eaten lava bread and cockles?

[ermintrude]

Being Welsh (South Wales) I've tried Lava_bread but it is not common to find, and I;ve only had it a few times - never with cockles but I could see that working well, cockles (with vinegar) combined with lava bread sounds like a combo that would work well.

So far my experience of lava_bread is it's ok but nothing to rave about. But I can see it's potential, however I now live in London (Still visit family in Wales regularly) but have never see it for sale except in tins.

Every welsh person I know would not consider lava bread to be a common food in Wales and most I know haven't even tasted it.

[PoppySeedBagel]

I've bought some fresh lava from a butcher in Newport in Pembrokeshire - and followed his instructions to have it hot with bacon for breakfast - it was nice. It's also a delicacy in North Devon - where it's spelled Laver I think. I once bought cockles in Waitrose - where they were marked as being clams - they did change the sign & price when I pointed it out to them!

Edited July 6, 2007 by PoppySeedBagel (log)

[rjs1]

Laverbread (Welsh: Bara Lawr) is a traditional Welsh delicacy made from the seaweed laver.

Laver is used traditionally in the Welsh diet and still eaten widely across Wales in the form of laverbread. The seaweed is boiled for several hours: the gelatinous paste that results is then rolled in oatmeal and fried. Laverbread is traditionally eaten fried with bacon and cockles for breakfast.

Has anyone here ever eaten lava bread and cockles?

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[Richard_D]

Laver is more common in S.Wales than North by a long way and I have in the past had it fresh from Swansea market amongst others. It is available in tins but is not as good.

Really good if you fry some fatty bacon then warm the laver in the rendered bacon fat.

[Carrot Top]

I found another article in Leite's Culinaria: Laver Bread: Welsh Sea Biscuits by Gary Allen.

Laver or purple laver (also known as black butter, purple seavegetable, or sloke) is scientifically known as Porphyra umbilicalis. In Chinese it's jee choy; in Gaelic it's sleabchan, sleabhach, or sleadai; in Swedish it's veckad purpurtang — although it's best known, culinarily, as nori, the dried sheets of seaweed used to wrap maki-type sushi.

It's nori? Incredible how different the final products are, made from the same thing!

There's a link in that article to "Wales Direct" which sells laverbread in cans which notes:

Laverbread can be mixed with fine oatmeal and formed into small cakes. When fried, preferably with bacon fat, these form part of a traditional Welsh breakfast and are very tasty. Usually they are served with bacon or mixed grills. Laverbread can also be fried in butter, with a squeeze of lemon and served on hot buttered toast. Another tradition is to add the juice of two Seville oranges to the laverbread and serve as an accompaniment to Welsh lamb. In Cornwall, incidentally, the custom is to eat laverbread cold with vinegar.

I would imagine that it must be much better fresh as most canned things are wont to be. It would be nice to try it fresh - the recipes you all mentioned above sound really good.

That comment about cold laverbread with vinegar eaten in Cornwall startled me, for my grandmother used to serve cooked spinach with butter and cider vinegar (her father was from Cornwall) and usually by the time one got to eat it, it was cold, or at least room temp (but that probably was error not intent ).

Edited July 6, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)