Wales’s foodie renaissance: on the trail of an extraordinary national cuisine

There’s more to the food of Wales than laverbread and cockles, great though they are. These four hiking and driving tours savour its broad range

Traditional Welsh food has for some time suffered something of an image problem, even among the Welsh themselves. Despite Richard Burton calling laverbread the “Welshman’s caviar”, when Welsh patriot Annie Haden put on a traditional menu in a 2009 episode of Come Dine With Me in Dylan Thomas’s childhood home, the guests were distinctly unimpressed.

Things are changing however, as Wales’s peasant foodways get rediscovered. From laverbread (seaweed) to ewe’s cheeses, oysters and cider to salted butter and saltmarsh lamb – and umpteen different ways with oats – the hallmarks of this peasant cooking are quality ingredients, prepared well.