Our favourite future King is a smart cookie (© Don the One), preparing for the sponsorship of the monarchy – the Waitrose Organic King Charles III.
* sic, according to the delicious Daily Mail today.
‘Frightfully goof for you’ *
Our favourite future King is a smart cookie (© Don the One), preparing for the sponsorship of the monarchy – the Waitrose Organic King Charles III.
* sic, according to the delicious Daily Mail today.
Boadicea's Chariot 
I like seaweed. I also like oaten biscuits.
Me too, even non-organic. 😉
Laverbread is to be had a damn sight cheaper at Swansea market!
delicious with cockles, gratinated with a light cheese sauce.
One of the most popular dishes on my menu at my place in Carms.
No doubt the price will go up of the raw material now he’s got into the act.
CO, is South Wales the best place for the seaweed or are they the only fans?
Janus: The Koreans, Japanese and Taiwanese have been in on this for centuries. Chinese on the coast have also not exactly been slouches.
Indeed – I was thinking GB.
By the time it’s had the hell processed out of it in some factory it probably isn’t much good for you.
In any case I never buy anything with Duchy on the label
The seaweeds used in the far East and the Atlantic maritime ares are completely different families and not to be compared. Ours are very thin sheets which are boiled to death and sold as a mashed paste, The nearest equivalent would be chopped creamed spinach, can be rolled into a patty, covered in oatmeal and fried, good with bacon for breakfast. Traditionally also served with cockles which tend to occupy the same waters, off Carmarthen and also Milford Sound.
Bit of an acquired taste but like a salty marine chard. Very rich in iron and iodine.
I always used to make the boy buy some for me at the market and bring it home at the weekends when he was coming back from Uni to use my washing machine! The price of admission! Theirs was particularly good.
There was a disaster in ’96 when the Sea Empress ran aground off Milford Haven and lost thousands of gallons of crude. It buggered the beds of cockles and seaweed for ten years! Was illegal to pick them they were all contaminated right up the estuary. I don’t think that by the time they were pickable again that they ever regained their popularity. Too many bloody English had moved in! Even today if you dig down into the beach a foot down there is a black line of crude buried in the sand.
One of the good things to come out of that debacle was that no ship, for any reason can enter the Sound without a pilot. There is a constant guard now of a Navy cutter at all times. They have to stand off in the roads until the are boarded and called in to their specific berths. When I was living there they had two hundred pilots on their books! So you can tell how busy it was! Plus of course the Irish Ferry. fishing boats, pleasure boats and people water skiing!!! Not a lot of room for error but they seem to have very few accidents, they try to keep it zoned and free channels. Hence the tankers have to wait their turn. It is nothing to see a dozen lined up from the pleasure beaches to the North.outside the sound.
They are even more careful now that they have the LNG terminals, anything go wrong with that and Milford and Neyland are blown off the map, literally!
CO: The Japanese and Koreans eat exactly what you describe…
How about Norfolk samphire, available for purchase in Norwich market as well as Waitrose.
Christopher, they are not the same species, I suggest you read the below link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edible_seaweed
CO: They’re not the same species, but the way they’re made isn’t dissimilar.
What’s a bit o’ seaweed between friends, eh? 🙂
Put it like this, they don’t make sushi in Swansea and they don’t have crispy fried seaweed either !
(Which one might note is cabbage not seaweed anyway!)
There is far more to seaweed than sushi and crispy fried seaweed. I take it you’ve never seen — or tried — Korean laver sheets? Porphyra is referred to as “nori” in Japanese, “zicai” in Chinese and “gim” in Korean. The only difference is that in Wales purple laver is preferred, in East Asia red laver is more common. While not exactly the same, they are similar. In East Asia laver soups and salads are commonly eaten.