Welsh food: Laver Lovers

What do Koreans, Japanese and the Welsh have in common?

The English have their roast beef & Yorkshire pudding, the Scots have haggis and our Irish friends over the sea love are experts in the use of the potato, but for the Welsh there’s nothing like a bit of seaweed for dinner!

Laver is a highly nutritious edible seaweed with high levels of vitamins B2, A, D and C found all around the coast of Britain and it’s also common around the coasts of Japan and Korea. In Japan it’s eaten with rice and known as nori while in Koreans know it as gim.

The high iodine and salt content of the seaweed is what gives it its distinctive flavour.

The seaweed is picked from the rocks at low-tide and given a wash in clean water. It is then repeatedly washed to remove sand and then boiled for several hours until it becomes a green mush. It can then be preserved for a week but is typically eaten cold as a salad with lamb or mutton, but one of the most well-known dishes is known as laverbread, though it has nothing to do with bread, which can be rolled in oatmeal or eaten without but traditionally is served with bacon and cockles for breakfast.