Welsh wonders

The leek may be the first thing that springs to mind when it comes to Welsh cooking, but dig a little deeper and you'll find a wealth of dishes using native ingredients from lamb to cheese, cockles to cakes, ice cream to seaweed

There is a legend that Welsh warriors of the 7th century wore leeks, the national symbol, on their helmets to distinguish them from their enemies, the Saxons, and that this noble veg gave them strength and victory in battle. Modern day cooks put them to better use in soups, stews and savoury tarts or baked with ham in a cheese sauce. Leeks blend well with other ingredients as part of a group or are happy served as a vegetable in their own right.

Now for something cheesy

Welsh rarebit (or rabbit) is a perennial favourite of young and old, Welsh and non-Welsh alike. Like most classics, there are numerous versions and treatments but in very basic terms it's cheese on toast.

A good Welsh rarebit uses Cheddar, and over the centuries it was necessary to barter sheep for Cheddar with their English neighbours just over the border. In an even older Welsh story rarebit was used by St Peter to tempt an excess number of Welshmen outside the pearly gates when Heaven became too crowded with them.

Wales also produces plenty of her own cheeses, Caerphilly being one of the best known. It originates in the town of the same name, which was a centre for cheese making in the early 19th century. Caerphilly is a cow's milk cheese with a soft, crumbly texture and mild flavour and was traditionally a favourite of Welsh miners.

In recent years smaller cheese-making farms have sprung up all over Wales, indeed all over the UK, and produce their own particular cheeses, often rearing their own cows, sheep and goats. Many offer tastings at the farmhouse and sell at local markets and by mail order through the Internet.

Stranger things at sea

One of the more unusual foods Wales has to offer is Laverbread. Not a bread at all, laver is an edible seaweed found on the southern and western coasts.

To make laverbread, the seaweed must be washed many times to remove the sand and then boiled for up to six hours to turn it into a gelatinous pulp. Then it is usually mixed with oatmeal, formed into cakes, fried and served with bacon. Laverbread isn't the only food from the sea to be found in Welsh cooking. The long coastline provides a bounty of fish and shellfish such as wild salmon, sea trout, crab, monkfish, Dover sole and cockles.

Historically Welsh cooks were not known for writing down their recipes, choosing rather to pass them down through the generations by word of mouth. This accounts for the great variation in ingredients and technique. And as with all agrarian societies, the better the harvest the fuller the pot, likewise when times were hard people got by on what was available.