Welsh Food Stories

Welsh Food Stories explores more than two thousand years of history to discover the rich but forgotten heritage of Welsh foods – from oysters to cider, salted butter to salt-marsh lamb. Despite centuries of industry, ancient traditions have survived in pockets across the country among farmers, bakers, fisherfolk, brewers and growers who are taking Welsh food back to its roots, and trailblazing truly sustainable foods as they do so. In this important book, author Carwyn Graves travels Wales to uncover the country’s traditional foods and meet the people making them today. There are the owners of a local Carmarthenshire chip shop who never forget a customer, the couple behind Anglesey’s world-renowned salt company Halen Môn, and everyone else in between – all of them have unique and compelling stories to tell about how they contribute to the past, present and future of Welsh food. This is an evocative and insightful exploration of an often overlooked national cuisine, shining a spotlight on the importance – environmentally and socially – of keeping local food production alive.

'Enthusiastic, erudite, entertaining and enlightening... Just the kind of erudite and enthusiastic guide needed to propel one to Wales to discover for oneself the unsuspected diversity and regionality of traditional foods that Carwyn Graves links to landscape, history and tradition.', Jasper Winn, author of Paddle and Water Ways

'One of the best food books of 2022 (and that’s a very competitive field this year.', Sheila Dillon, Presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme

'If you want to know what it means to be Welsh in your heart and soul, read this book … In spare and elegant prose, Carwyn Graves tells the story of a land of beauty, hardship and plenty through the food that’s set on the table and the culinary traditions that live on in memory – for now … a book so full of memories it move me to tears.', Elisabeth Luard, Chair, Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery, author of European Peasant Cookery; Sacred Food; Tapas; Family Life, My Life as a Wife, Squirrel Pie