Welsh Caviar
Photo © Rob Jones
There is something deeply unappetising about Lavabread - apart from the taste.
The Welsh actor Richard Burton described it as ‘Welsh Caviar.’ He would have been brought up on it, but there’s a part of me that thinks he would have found it a hard sell if he’d presented it to Elizabeth Taylor one morning dressed as Julius Ceasar, and she as Cleopatra. (It’s the only way I can think of them.)
‘I have cooked you a full Welsh breakfast, my dove,’ he might have begun.
‘How charming,’ she might have replied,’ but what is that when it’s at home?’
‘Much the same as a Full English, with a few Welsh tweeks,’
‘Those tweeks being?’
Burton points to a grubby green tacky smear on the plate, slightly to the one side of the egg - and wait, is that fried cockles?
Yes well… How many times did they divorce? I rather think the Laverbread had a role to play in their rocky relationship.
However….
I am presenting two Laverbread recipes… Laver Cakes will appear in another post, as a possible candidate for a Welsh Tapas dish.
But the simplest option is as follows:
Buy a tin of Laverbread - most big supermarkets have it. You could nip across to the Severn Estuary, scrape some suitable seaweed off a rock, boil it to Kingdom come, and then mince it, but actually the creation of the sludge has all been done for you. Parson’s seem to have cornered the mass market.
I divided my tin’s contents into two - so a little 120g tin certainly goes a long way. Use the other half for the Laver Cakes.
Add a liberal squeeze of lemon juice, and salt and pepper. You could fry it, but I whacked it in the microwave to heat up for two minutes.
Prepare some soldiers (bread) and the yolk of an egg.
Smear the gloop on the buttered soldiers and dip in the egg. Sublime. The taste is literally indescribable. No, really. I thought hard while eating it, how best to describe the taste and I can’t.
I realise that I maybe haven’t made it sound as appetising as I could. I’m not sure it’s possible. It’s more of a leap faith. Note however that Laver Bread is good for you, is very low in calories, very rich in protein, contains iodine and vitamins A ,B, B2, C & D. It is also classified as vegetarian, clearly.
RJ
