Wild Welsh Laverbread Seaweed

• One 150g frozen pouch of Welsh laverbread: laver seaweed cooked down with water and a little salt, and nothing else
• Fry it in the fat after the bacon, or spread it cold on toast with a squeeze of lemon
• Serves 1–2 alongside a cooked breakfast (one, if you grew up on it)

Welsh laverbread isn't bread at all. It's laver seaweed (Porphyra umbilicalis, a cousin of Japanese nori), picked by hand off the Gower coast and cooked for hours until it collapses into a dark, glossy purée. It doesn't look like much, we'll admit. Richard Burton called it Welshman's caviar, which tells you more about how the Welsh feel about it than how it looks.

Ours comes from a family business that has been gathering laver on the Gower Peninsula for over 50 years. Welsh laverbread has had Protected Designation of Origin status since 2017, so the name only goes on laver cooked in Wales the traditional way. It tastes salty and savoury, closer to the shoreline than to anything green.

The classic way to eat it: fry your bacon, lift it out, then tip the defrosted laverbread into the fat and warm it through for three or four minutes, stirring. Put the bacon on top, with cockles and an egg if you're doing it properly. For laver cakes, stir in oatmeal until the mix holds together, shape it into small patties and fry until crisp on both sides. Defrost it in the fridge overnight. It comes frozen, which a purist might grumble about; defrosted properly, we'd defy you to tell it from fresh, and if you can, we'll give you your money back.

If you're doing the full Welsh breakfast, our cooked cockle meat is the other half of it.

How you've been using our laverbread...

• "Tablespoon of oats, leave to soak up the liquid overnight… Baked it… cut into pieces to accompany scrambled eggs."
• "Cooked in pan where bacon has been cooked, taste of heaven."
• "A proper Welsh breakfast with cockles."

Laverbread questions

Is laverbread actually bread?

No. It's cooked, puréed laver seaweed; the name is old Welsh usage (in Welsh, bara lawr).

Is it ready to eat?

Yes. It's already cooked, so once defrosted you can eat it cold on toast or warm it through in a pan.

What's in it?

Seaweed, water and salt. It may contain traces of fish, shellfish and molluscs.

How do you eat laverbread?

Traditionally fried in bacon fat and served with bacon, cockles and eggs as a Welsh breakfast. It's also good cold on toast with lemon, or mixed with oatmeal and fried as laver cakes.