Wales is an exceptional destination – full of green rolling hills and history – not completely taken over by high rises and large cities.
With a tradition of agriculture, sheep farming, cheese making, beer/ale and drink production, there’s no wonder Wales is quickly being rediscovered as a popular food destination for local, eco, and organic eating movements.
So if you’re thinking of visiting Wales – here’s are the top local foods and specialties you’ve got to try in Wales.
How to eat like a local in Wales
Bara Brith is a Welsh fruit bread that would traditionally be the centerpiece of a Welsh tea table. The bread contains mixed dried fruit, tea, marmalade, spices, flour, eggs, and brown sugar.
Cawl is a Welsh version of beef or lamb and vegetable stew or soup and is often served with a healthy loaf of bread. It’s often cooked with potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, leeks and known as a “meal in a pot.”
Faggots are Welsh meatballs that are made from lamb or pig’s liver mixed with onions and cereal.
Glamorgan Sausages are not actually sausages, but a mix of cheese and eggs shaped as a sausage, covered with breadcrumbs and toasted or fried. Often served as a side or appetizer.
Bara Lafwr or Laverbread is made with laver or seaweed, high in protein, iron, and iodine. The seaweed is boiled and then minced or pureed into a paste. The paste can be spread on toast, mixed with oatmeal and fried into cakes, fried up with bacon and cockles (small clams) for a Welsh traditional breakfast, used as a sauce with lamb or fish, or used to make laver soup.
Welsh Cakes are mini raisin griddle cakes served with tea, as opposed to the English scone. They’re flat and cooked/fried on a griddle to give them a soft, buttery texture, finished with coarse sugar on top. They’re often served with butter, and less often with butter and cream.
Leek Soup is a popular starting dish in Wales because the leek is one of the most well known symbols in Wales before the red dragon. The importance of the leek comes from an old tale: during a war between the Welsh and an enemy, the Welsh side picked leeks out of the ground and pinned bunches to their chest to differentiate themselves from the opposition.
Welsh Rarebit is a popular snack or side dish found in Wales and in the UK. It’s made with dark beer, butter, and strong cheddar cheese mixed together in a pan until turned into a paste. The paste is spread on a piece of buttered toast and finished for a few more minutes in the oven, then served with Worcestershire sauce.
Jams and Preserves are also very popular throughout Wales. You’ll find many of the typical marmalades and local fruit jams like plums, apricots, plums, rhubarb, and etc. However, you’ll also find unusual chutneys like green tomato, mango and cumin, cauliflower and pumpkin, and etc.
Cheese from Wales has a long history of top-quality cheese production. The cheese is so good that it was once part of divorce settlements. Today, cheeses are made by small to medium-sized local producers who are making the most popular Welsh cheeses: caerphilly, acorn, celtic promise, llanboidy, teifi, red dragon, and tintern cheeses.
Local Beer, Ales, Mead, and Cider in Wales can be found at nearly every local pub. As Guinness is Ireland’s home brew, so Brains is Wales’ favourite beer. Mead, made from honey, is a dessert drink and has been produced in Wales since 600 AD. Meads are often flavoured with other fruits like apple, raspberry, blueberry, and etc. Ciders are another popular local product. Local wines can be found but are not as popular as the above.
Penderyn Whisky is a single malt whisky and is more or less the only Welsh whisky producer. Even though Wales has been making whisky since the Middle Ages, a huge decline in the production of whisky occurred in the 19th century due to a rise in the temperance movement throughout the country.
Welsh Lamb is the most popular meat in Wales – after all, with 10 million sheep in the country, sheep outnumber the population of Wales by something like 4:1.
Welsh Black Beef is the second major meat product in Wales after lamb. It’s raved about throughout the country and prepared in hundreds of different ways and is a bit of a tougher beef.
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