LAVER
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Laver or laverbread is to be found in all the marktt, in South Wales towns within easy reach of the sea every Saturday, ready prepared for cooking. After the thin bronze slimy leaves are collected off the rock; they are well washed and passed carefully through the fingers to rid them of any sand or shell—then squeezed out—clopped up and put into an iron saucepan with a piece of fat bacon and allowed to cook for hours with frequent stirring—or in the old days, and even now, further west than Glamorgan, it might be prepared on what we call a Bakestone, or what probably the majority of your readers would know as a girdle. When it is reduced to a soft black mass it is put on one side to cool, and is then sold in the markets at about 9d. a lb. The usual way to eat it in South Wales is to form it into flat cakes and cover them plentifully with coare oatmeal and then fry in hot fat, and serve either as a vegetable, or else with bacon at breakfast. When I was at Bundoran in County Donegal we got plenty of laver of a much lighten coloured bronze than in Wales. There it went by the name of Delisk. Laver is supposed to be very good for people who suffer from their glands. Old residents in Glamorgan think that, like oysters, it should only be eaten in the months with
Previous page
