Welsh cuisine (Welsh: Ceginiaeth Cymreig) encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with Wales. While there are many dishes that can be considered Welsh due to their ingredients and/or history, dishes such as cawl, Welsh rarebit, laverbread, Welsh cakes, bara brith and Glamorgan sausage have all been regarded as symbols of Welsh food. Some variation in dishes exists across the country, with notable differences existing in the Gower Peninsula, a historically isolated rural area which developed self-sufficiency in food production (see Cuisine of Gower).
While some culinary practices and dishes have been imported from other parts of Britain, uniquely Welsh cuisine grew principally from the lives of Welsh working people, largely as a result of their isolation from outside culinary influences and the need to produce food based on the limited ingredients they could produce or afford. Sheep farming is practised extensively in Wales, with lamb and mutton being the meats most traditionally associated with the country. Beef and dairy cattle are also raised widely, and there is a strong fishing culture. Fisheries and commercial fishing are common and seafood features widely in Welsh cuisine.
Vegetables, beyond cabbages and leeks, were historically rare. The leek has been a national symbol of Wales for at least 400 years and Shakespeare refers to the Welsh custom of wearing a leek in Henry V.
Since the 1970s, the number of restaurants and gastropubs in Wales has increased significantly and there are currently five Michelin starred restaurants located in the country.
History
There are few written records of traditional Welsh foods; recipes were held within families and passed down orally between the women of the family. The lack of records was highlighted by Mati Thomas in 1928, who made a unique collection of 18th century "Welsh Culinary Recipes" as an award-winning Eisteddfod entry.
Those with the skills and inclination to write Welsh recipes, the upper classes, conformed to English styles and therefore would not have run their houses with traditional Welsh cuisine. The traditional cookery of Wales originates from the daily meals of peasant folk, unlike other cultures where meals often started in the kitchens of the gentry and would be adapted.
Historically the King of the Welsh people would travel, with his court, in a circuit, demanding tribute in the form of food from communities they visited as they went. The tribute was codified in the Laws of Hywel Dda, showing that people lived on beer, bread, meat and dairy products, with few vegetables beyond cabbages and leeks. The laws show how much value was put on different parts of Welsh life at the time, for example that wealth was measured in cattle; they also show that the court included hunters, who would be restricted to seasonal hunting.
Food would be cooked in a single cauldron over an open fire on the floor; it would likely be reheated and topped up with fresh ingredients over a number of days. Some dishes could be cooked on a bakestone, a flat stone placed above a fire to heat it evenly.
Gerald of Wales, chaplain to Henry II, wrote after an 1188 tour of Wales, "The whole population lives almost entirely on oats and the produce of their herds, milk, cheese and butter. You must not expect a variety of dishes from a Welsh kitchen, and there are no highly-seasoned titbits to whet your appetite." The medieval Welsh used thyme, savory, and mint in the kitchen, but in general herbs were much more likely to be used for medicinal purposes than culinary ones.
Towards the end of the 18th century, Welsh land owners divided up the land to allow for tenant-based farming. Each small holding would include vegetable crops, as well as a cow, pigs and a few chickens. The 18th and 19th centuries were a time of unrest for the Welsh people. The Welsh food riots began in 1740, when colliers blamed the lack of food on problems in the supply, and continued throughout Wales as a whole. The worst riots happened in the 1790s after a grain shortage, which coincided with political upheaval in the form of forced military service and high taxes on the roads, leaving farmers unable to make a profit. As a result of riots by colliers in the mid-1790s, magistrates in Glamorgan sold the rioters corn at a reduced price. At the same time they also requested military assistance from the government to stop further rioting. Due to the close-knit nature of the poor communities, and the slightly higher status of the farmers above the labourers, the rioters generally blamed the farmers and corn merchants, rather than the gentry.