What Food Is Wales Famous For?

What food is Wales famous for? Many traditional Welsh dishes are well-known and have gained popularity all over the world. Some types of Welsh cuisine on this list, like cawl, might already be familiar. But have you heard of cockles? 

What food is Wales famous for? You’ll find that many popular foods in Wales have become quite famous. Some of the foods on this list you may recognize, while others may be new. Traditional Welsh food includes Welsh rarebit, cawl, Welsh cakes, bara brith, Glamorgan sausage, and crempog, to name but a few dishes. 

Food in Wales evolved the way it did out of necessity. When it came to cooking with the local ingredients available, people were, for the most part, isolated. In remote places especially, they didn’t have abundant resources the way we do today and weren’t exposed to the food of many other cultures. 

For instance, cawl, which is considered the national dish of Wales, has grown to be a hearty stew. When people in ancient Wales first started making it, they used what they had on hand—lamb or pork and a few herbs and veggies. Even though people farmed and grew what they could, they also had to forage for things like mint or thyme. However, they did grow and make great use of leeks, one of the main staples in cawl and other famous Welsh foods. This is just one example of how cuisine in Cymru grew with the land, people, and times.

This post answers the question, “What food is Wales famous for?”

What food is Wales famous for?

You’ll also find various traditional dishes originating from different regions of Cymru. North and South Wales have each had unique culinary evolutions, with foods from both areas now enjoyed throughout the country and elsewhere.

Welsh Rarebit

Welsh Rarebit, sometimes called “Welsh Rabbit,” is a simple but delicious dish from Cymru. People first started making a similar food sometime during the Middle Ages. By the late 1700s, cooks were using the term “Welsh Rarebit”—although to this day, we don’t know precisely why it is called that (though there are guesses). Today, you can find many variations of this traditional food from Wales. The essential ingredients include toasted bread with a creamy sauce containing melted cheddar cheese, leeks, flour, butter, beer, and spices. So, don’t be fooled into thinking that Welsh Rarebit is only cheese on toast! If you’d like to try this famous Welsh food, here’s a Welsh rarebit recipe.  

Welsh Cakes

Sometimes called “Welsh cookies” by those on the other side of the pond, a Welsh cake isn’t precisely a biscuit or cookie. It’s a lightly sweet pan-fried cake with the consistency of a biscuit, pancake, and scone rolled into one. They’re small (about 4 – 7 cm in diameter) and cut into rounds with a biscuit cutter. Nowadays, Welsh cakes are made with flour, butter or lard, egg, milk, dried fruit, spices, sugar, and a bit of salt. After cooking, it’s dusted with castor sugar. There are also many variations, such as savory Welsh cakes using leeks, cheese, herbs, etc. 

Welsh cakes came about in the 1800s when miners needed something portable and filling to take to work—something that would keep well. Homemakers solved this by using what they had on hand to make Welsh cakes. They cooked them on a bakestone, a special flat pan (griddle) made of slate or sandstone, and later from stainless steel. You can read more about Welsh cakes history here. 

Bara Brith

Next on our list of famous Welsh foods is bara brith. Its name translates as “speckled bread.” It’s a traditional, rich, and satisfying bread made with fruit and another key ingredient: tea! The original recipe incorporates yeast, while some widely-used modern recipes do not, resulting in bread that is more like cake. Bara brith tastes amazing when served warm with Welsh salted butter alongside afternoon tea. But don’t take my word for it—you can try your hand at baking your own speckled bread with this fabulous bara brith recipe from Visit Wales.

Cawl

Cawl, a Welsh word meaning “soup” or “broth,” is the national food of Wales. You pronounce it like the word “owl,” but beginning with a hard “c.” The earliest cawl cookers were the Beaker Folk. They boiled water over fire-heated stones and added what they had: lamb, beef, or pork with oats and wild herbs. By the 14th century, the cawl was more similar to today’s version (minus the potatoes, which came to Britain in the 1600s). The traditional Welsh cawl you can make or order in a restaurant is made of lamb, potatoes, leeks, vegetables, and spices in a savory broth. Click here for cawl recipes. 

Crempog (Crempogau)

Crempogs are essentially the Welsh version of pancakes. They are similar to crepes but are thicker and smaller. While the Welsh enjoy crempogs year round, they especially eat them before Lent begins on Shrove Tuesday. (“Shrove” refers to a priest hearing someone’s confession.) The day has come to be called “Pancake Day.”

Welsh Lamb

Welsh lamb is world famous for its incredible taste and high quality. Known to be sweet and tender, the lambs are raised in a natural environment and have Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status for their uniquely Welsh characteristics.

Leek Dishes

The leek is one of the national emblems of Wales, the other being the daffodil. Leeks arrived in Wales from Phonecian traders as early as the first millennium BC. This savory relative of the onion has grown right alongside the people of Wales both culinarily and culturally. Leeks grown in Wales over thousands of years have developed special qualities unique to Cymru—so much so that they are another food that has been awarded Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status. You’ll find leeks in many types of popular food in Wales, such as Welsh rarebit, lamb cawl, Welsh pie, omelets, baked Welsh lamb, soup, baked potatoes, and more. Click here for three delicious Welsh leek recipes.

Welsh Black Beef 

This breed of cattle native to Wales is raised in various regions of the country. Originally, there were two strains: a sturdier, smaller type in North Wales and a larger, more slender kind in South Wales. Over time, farmers developed a hybrid to meet the market’s demands. They are raised for both beef and milk. The superior taste of Welsh beef makes a succulent brisket, roast beef, or any other dish that calls for tender meat.

Some Treats from North Wales

Conwy Mussels

In restaurants in the Menai Strait, you can get a hot, steaming bowl of Conwy mussels that were fresh-caught this morning. People love these large mussels for their sweet flavor.

Aberffraw Biscuit

One of the oldest biscuits in Britain, this shell-shaped shortbread with a crisp, buttery flavor has 13th-century origins in Ynys Môn (Isle of Anglesey). The biscuit is also called “James Cakes” due to its association with the Way of St. James’ pilgrimage—routes leading to the shrine of this saint in the church of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.

Welsh Food from South Wales

Laverbread

Laverbread is a truly fascinating Welsh food. It’s about as Welsh as it gets. Laverbread isn’t really bread at all but a delicate seaweed that has been boiled for hours and then mashed, minced, or pureed into a pulp. The seaweed itself is called “laver,” and it’s harvested from the South Wales coast. Like Welsh cakes, in the past, laverbread was a sustaining food for miners (though its history in Wales goes much further back to Roman times). It has a unique salty flavor and texture, is high in iron, and satisfies, especially when spread onto slices of bread.

Today, people still eat it this way. They also use the laverbread to make lavercakes—fried vegetarian oat patties. You’ll also find laverbread served with beans on toast, in versions of Welsh rarebit, eaten alongside cockles, and in soups. It’s also used in making savory Welsh cakes. Here’s a link on where to buy laverbread.

Glamorgan Sausage

If you’re vegetarian and don’t eat sausage, then Glamorgan sausage is the perfect workaround! These sausages contain no meat and are named more for their shape than their ingredients. They consist mainly of Caerphilly cheese (or other Welsh cheese), leeks, herbs, and seasonings formed into cylinders, coated with bread crumbs, and pan-fried. If you prefer, you can also leave off the breading for a gluten-free option.

Cockles

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve mentioned cockles a couple of times now. Okay, so what, exactly, is a cockle? Cockles are small clams found in the coastal regions of South Wales. They’re collected at low tide from sandy beaches that are protected from strong winds and rough waters. Cockles are often fried with bacon, laverbread, and lemon juice and eaten as a component of a “traditional Welsh breakfast” (bacon, eggs, cockles, and lavercakes). Cockles are also great on their own as a snack.

Salt Marsh Lamb

While you might think the meat of Salt Marsh lamb would be salty, it’s actually the opposite. It’s even sweeter than regular Welsh lamb. Since the lambs graze on plants from the marshes, they take in nutrients found only in these wetland grasses and herbs. This special diet gives the meat a unique taste you can’t get from lamb anywhere else in the world.

Caerphilly Cheese

Caerphilly is a type of Welsh cheese first made in the town of its name. The original version from the 1800s was a white cheese that was soft and creamy. Nowadays, a dry, crumbly type of cheese is available in markets that is called by the same name but isn’t like the real thing, especially if it’s not made in Wales. You can still find authentic Caerphilly produced by a few artisan cheese makers. For example, Mr. Thomas and Mr. Rowlands of the newly-launched Cwmni Caws Caerffili (Caerphilly Cheese Company) hope to revive the nearly-lost art of making this unique cheese.

This post answered the question, “What food is Wales famous for?”