" Laver "
THERE was an item in the club menu the other day : " Roast Saddle of Mutton and Laver," which sorely puzzled the members. I momentarily got some kudos because I happened to know what "laver" is. A member to whom it was offered with his mutton looked at it in a dubious manner, and then declined it. He thought it was a --sort of thick mint sauce, and was astonished when I explained to him that it Ni-as seaweed.
I had not seen nor heard of laver for a long time, but I well remember the first, and, indeed, the only occasion on which I had tasted-it: I was staying in- the country with friends, who offered it to me as a Devonshire delicacy. It was a black, slimy mess, and likely, it seemed, to upset a queasy stomach. I am willing to try anything once, and althoUgh my heart failed me at the unsightly look ot. the laver, I tried it. The eye has great influence on the taste, and I did not enjoy it. I -murmured polite things about it, but showed no desire for a second helping.
Laver, indeed, confirmed the suspicion that had started in Me then, and has: increased ever since, that local delicacies arc unappetising, if not actually poisonous, to persons from other places. There is an abominable concoction, popular in Cornwall, called " Saffron cake." Never in this world du I wish to taste that stuff again ! Persons have travelled long distances to taste bouillabaisse, a dish on which the inhabitants of Marseilles seem almost to live, but these same travellers soon repented of their pilgrimage. I admit a liking for frogs' legs, but no one will ever induce me to eat snails a second time ; nasty, leathery things, which gave me a prolonged pain for the rest of the clay on which I ate them, and a good deal of the da.y after.
We have a delicacy in Ulster called " Treacle bread," which I commend to everybody, provided that it is made by an Ulster woman. -Now, that is a local delicacy that anybody can cat with delight, and it has the singular merit of being both good for you and excellent eating.
It was not, however, of these- things that I started to write, but of laver, which. is, I am told, sometimes called " sloke," although whether it is spelt " sloke " or " sloak " I do not know. Laver, I discovered during a journey of enquiry in Devonshire, is not now known- to many Devonshire people. The . member of my club who regarded it as a sort -of thick mint sauce is himself a Devonshire man, but he had never .heard of it. Old fishermen in a South Devon village could remember hearing of laver when they were children, but since seaweed is not very common on that part of the Devon coast,. the manufacture of it, I suppose, long ago ceased.
The steward of the club had taken some trouble to get the laver—it came, he told me, from Norfolk—and was a little distressed at our disinclination to eat it ; and so, being a kindly person, I persuaded my neighbours to join me in trying it. The kudos I had obtained through knowing that it was made of seaweed seemed to give me a degree of oratory that I had not hitherto suspected, and my neighbours consented, because of my eloquence, to share a helping with me. The delighted steward fetched the dark and, I am obliged to confess, slimy-looking stuff, and very gingerly we tasted it. My left-hand neighbour immediately helped - himself to a larger portion, and my right-hand neighbour leant across the table to the DeVonshire Man who had rejected it, and informed him that he had made a terrible mistake.. - Laver has a good taste. It has, of course, the taste of the sea, but it has also, or so- I thought, the flavour of leeks in it. It certainly- is palatable, and is reputed to be uncommonly good for all who eat it. " Better :than medicine ! " I.reineniber to have been told by a fisher- man. Why it should be specially served with saddle of mutton I do not know.- I should have thought that so excellent a delicacy might fitly be served with all meat. But- the mysteries oU additions- and condiments and garatishes are beyond me. A man who took. mustard with mutton was once considered to be almost a cad. Now the Mustard Club consider him a cad if he doesn't. George Gissing, in The -Private Papers of Henry Ryecroj?, stoutly supported those who would keep mustard and mutton for ever apart. He has a lot to say in that delightful book on flavours and how they should be enjoyed. What most. impressed me about my. second serving of laver was the fact that- I had overcome my youthful submission of taste to sight. Its appearance no onger affected my palate. It seemed not to affect that of my neighbours. I suppose_ ageing men have less acute sight than the young, and that. that is why they are so fond of their food. -The young are seldom gourmets. They have an indifference to food.which is not an affecta- tion. They will eat the most extraordinary messes. Schoolboys notoriously have insides equal in strength and range to those possessed by ostriehs. An ostrich, they say, finds nails very tasty ; and it would not astonish me to hear that schoolboys find them equally palatable.
When I think of laver and how I disliked it when I was young, and how I enjoy it now when I am middle-aged, I begin to wonder whether, after all, this question of - taste - in food is not a question of sight. The :strong .eye of youth is so intent upon the look of things that it does not think about their substance, but the dimming eye of the middle-aged no longer regards the appearance with sufficient strength to upset the tongue, and therefore they are able.to settle their thoughts on what is iniportant. If there is anything in-this argument, then the blind ought to have the finest palates of all human beings. I wonder
Previous page
