Fourth National Laverbread Day celebrates Welsh delicacy

A celebration of laverbread first held on April 14th 2022 is in its fourth year, with the national salute to seaweed receiving attention from WWF Cymru.

Laverbread incorporates a type of edible seaweed Porphyra, the same seaweed used to make nori in Japan, found along Britain’s coastline. The cooking of laverbread is a Welsh tradition involving boiling the laver until it creates a dark green paste with a savoury flavour that’s used in other recipes or eaten alone.

National Laverbread Day was founded in 2022 by Pembrokeshire Beach Food Company who produce and sell several laver products to share their love of the Welsh delicacy and promote its benefits.

Food wonder

Laverbread was favoured for many years for being an accessible source of iron and iodine for hardworking Welsh fishermen and dockworkers, containing gram for gram more protein than chicken and boasting the highest level of protein of all seaweeds.

Of their decision to start National Laverbread Day, Pembrokeshire Beach Food Company owner Johnathan Williams said: “For too long we feel laverbread has been cast aside as a footnote in the culinary world, But not anymore.

‘From now on this incredible ingredient shall be celebrated, revered around the world for the marvellous delicacy it is. To me, Laverbread has to be one of the food wonders of the world. The use of laverbread has declined and we believe that this is just not acceptable: this food wonder should be celebrated as much as possible.”

The date was chosen as it coincides with the Japanese celebration ‘Mother of the Sea Day’ which honours Kathleen Mary Drew-Baker, a porphyria cultivation researcher who helped commercialise the Japanese laver industry.

Survival

Though no one knows exactly when the Welsh began to make and eat laverbread, some believe this tradition began when vikings sought a survival food. Its first written description appears in texts by Giraldis Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales) in the 12th century as he describes a trip around Wales.

William Camden’s Britannia (1607), however, vividly describes the springtime gathering of Lhawvan from the beach of Eglwys Abernon near St David’s in Pembrokeshire, noting that several parts of the country made: “A sort of Food…of a Sea-plant

‘By the description I hear of it, I take to be the Oyster-green or Lectuca marina. This custom I find obtains also in Glamorganshire (where it is call’d Laverbread) as also in several parts of Scotland and Ireland, and probably in some Counties of England.”

Sustainability

WWF Cymru has also noted the benefits of laverbread’s sustainability and its potential to help tackle the global climate crisis. Underwater laver forests preserve and increase marine biodiversity by providing homes and food for juvenile fish, soft corals, limpets, urchins and crustaceans.

Seaweed forests also help to absorb carbon, filter pollution, and lower water’s acidity, helping molluscs grow more quickly and acting as a buffer to prevent coastal landscapes from erosion and flooding.

The charity has been working with Câr-y-Môr, a community-owned seaweed and shellfish farm in Pembrokeshire, as well as the Regenerative Ocean farm on the St David’s peninsula to monitor impact on the marine environment as well as investigate innovative uses for seaweed, such as adding it to animal feed to reduce methane from cows.

To find out more about laverbread and how you can use it in recipes today or throughout the year, visit the National Laverbread Day website here.