Known as The Garden of Wales, Retrieved 7 August 2010 Carmarthenshire is a county of rich, fertile farmland and productive seas and estuaries, that give it a range of foods that motivate many home cooks and restaurateurs.Pressdee, C., ‘Colin Pressdee's Welsh Coastal Cookery, BBC Books, 1995, There is a local tradition in brewing, milling, gathering shellfish from the coasts and meat production. Carmarthenshire has been described by The Daily Telegraph as a "worthwhile destination for foodies" with the county having a modest matter of fact excellence. Carmarthenshire has ambitions to become the premier food-producing county of Wales, based on its strong reputation for first-class products. Retrieved 7 August 2010 and Carmarthenshire County Council produces its own on-line and hard-copy recipe book called Taste from Carmarthenshire, for those interested in learning more about the county's cuisine.
Markets
Agriculture is an important industry in Carmarthenshire, and most people visit the busy market towns throughout the county. Each market operates a livestock sale on different days. Llanybydder has a normal mart held on Mondays, and a monthly horse sale on the last Thursday of the month. Carmarthen is the county town, and has a full market on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but many stalls are permanent and open every day. The market is important to purchasers of fresh local foods.Davies, G., “A Taste of Wales”, Pavilion Books Limited, 1995, Carmarthen Market is now at the heart of the £74m St Catherine's Walk redevelopment scheme, which was completed in 2010. Retrieved 7 August 2010 Carmarthen has been described as an authentic market town worth a second look. Llanelli market is another busy county market, with more than 50 family run businesses.
The farming year includes agricultural shows held at the showground of the United Counties Agricultural and Hunters Society at Nantyci, near Saron, Carmarthenshire, which often includes exhibits of local produce.
Meat
Carmarthenshire's undulating land is prime dairy and mixed farming country, with lamb and beef both important. In his 1726 pastoral poem "Grongar Hill" the poet John Dyer refers to the valley of the River Towy as follows: Old castles on the cliffs arise, Proudly tow’ring in the skies! Rushing from the woods, the spires Seem from hence ascending fires! Half his beams Apollo sheds On the yellow mountain-heads! Gilds the fleeces of the flocks: And glitters on the broken rocks!
Pressdee notes that a number of farms specialise in beef production from a range of British and Continental breeds, with Welsh Black becoming more popular, as in other Welsh regions, over recent years.Pressdee, C., ‘Food Wales, A Second Helping, Graffeg pub., 2005,
Several organic farms have made an impact in the county, including Fferm Tyllwyd located at Felingwm Uchaf, producing organic Welsh Black beef steaks.Organic Centre Wales, “Local Organic, Where to buy fresh, local organic food and drink in Wales 2008-9”, sponsored by the Welsh Assembly Government Welsh Black beef is matured for 21 days at SJ & S Baker, located at Pontyberem. The May Organic Farms at Lampeter offer organic highland beef, Welsh mountain lamb and mutton reared on 100 hectares of conservation land. Welsh Black beef is a speciality of Cig Calon Cymru at Cross Hands, where they have a state-of-the-art butchery linked to their own abattoir and farms. Dewi Roberts of Ffairfach, Llandeilo has his own premium range, which is connected with all the local farmers and draws customers from a wide area, and from internet sales. Another supplier is Cambrian Organics of Llandysul. Ystrad Traditional Organics based in Brechfa, produces lamb, hogget, mutton and beef from some of Britain's rarest breeds and was a True Taste of Wales award winner in 2007.
Pigs are part of the mixed farming economy. Traditionally every farm kept a Welsh pig as part of the staple diet. During the winter, the main source of meat was cured ham and bacon from pigs raised on the farm. Hams were cured in the large chimneys of farm kitchens, which slowly dried the ham and bacon after it had been salted. This tradition has largely died out, but the remaining producers make hams which are similar to Bayonne, Serrano, or Parma hams. Freshly cured ham is sliced for grilling, older ham is boiled as a York ham, and ham cured for many months is sliced wafer thin, like Parma ham. Carmarthen ham has a similar farmyard flavour. The hocks have the greatest flavour, and need to be boiled a long time to soften the meat. They make a good base for winter stew, or a summer ‘paysanne’ salad. Dry-cured Carmarthen Ham can be found at Carmarthen Market. Six generations of the Rees family have sold ham here spanning 200 years. and their family were the first commercial producers of dry-cured ham in Britain. Carmarthen Ham is dry salt-cured and then air dried and sold whole boneless, or sliced thinly and vacuum packed. It is believed that when the Romans settled in Carmarthen they acquired the recipe and on their return to Italy called it Parma Ham. The ham is cut in thin wafers and is served like prosciutto or Parma ham, but is saltier. Carmarthen Ham production remains a cottage industry, in order to keep it a premium product. Carmarthen Ham is a particular favourite of King Charles III. The Rees family also produce a short back and streaky bacon. This is dry-cured for one week and hung for a further three weeks. It is recommended that the bacon is blanched before frying to remove any excess salt. The Rees family have more than 80 hams curing at any one time, Retrieved 8 August 2010 and it takes nine months to cure they also have a mail order business and travel to the nearby markets of Brecon, Fishguard, Haverfordwest, Pembroke and Cardigan.
Recipes for Carmarthen ham include: Country Ham with Vegetable Stew; Pancakes stuffed with Carmarthen Ham and Wild Mushrooms with a Savoury Custard; Salad Paysanne with Carmarthen Ham and Lentils, and Carmarthen Ham in Beer Carmarthenshire Ham has featured on Rick Stein's Food Heroes The Welsh chef Dudley recommends the recipe Pork Wrapped in Carmarthenshire Ham Retrieved 8 August 2010 At the Royal Welsh Show 2010, Carmarthenshire Ham was included in the new European Protected Food names initiative for Protective Geographical Indication (PGI) status, which would give European Union legal status to Carmarthenshire Ham.
Carmarthen Market also sells home-made brawn, sausages, pork pies, and faggots. Faggots can be bought at Ettie Richardson's Home Baking stall, which sells them fresh every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. A & G Williams of Felinfoel produce traditional Welsh faggots and other savoury products. Brawn is a traditional Carmarthenshire dish, and one Carmarthenshire recipe includes pig's head and trotters which are rubbed well with salt and then placed in a crock and left for 2 or 3 days. The meat is then washed in cold water, placed in a boiler pan, brought to the boil and then simmered for 3–4 hours until the meat leaves the bone. The meat is then minced with onions, sage and pepper and then, the liquor strained, and then the mixture simmered for about 15 minutes and then left to cool.Freeman, B., "Traditional Food From Wales", Hippocrene Books, 1997,
Fets y Cybydd, or the Miser's Feast, was a very popular dish in Carmarthenshire 100 years ago. It was made in a saucepan, but can also be made in a casserole. The bottom of the dish is covered in peeled potatoes, and a sliced onion, with a little salt, covered with water and then brought to the boil. When the water is boiling, a few slices of bacon or a piece of ham are placed on top. The lid is replaced and the whole simmered until the potatoes are cooked, and the water absorbed. The miser was supposed to eat the potatoes one day, mashed up in the liquid, keeping the slices of bacon to be eaten out the next day with plain boiled potatoes.Anon., Croeso Cymreig, a Welsh Welcome: Recipes for some Traditional Welsh Dishes’, John Jones Publishing Ltd., 1979,
The poet Lynette Roberts, who spent her final years from 1989 in Ferryside and is buried in the churchyard in Llanybri, wrote about making cawl in her Poem from Llanybri (1946), as follows:
In the village when you come. At noon-day I will offer you a choice bowl of cawl Served with a 'lover's' spoon and a chopped spray Of leeks or savori fach...
Gilli Davies notes that:
..it is not so long ago that almost every meal in rural Wales included cawl in some form or other. Fresh herbs, often winter savory, was grown near the back door so that it could easily be picked and added to the cawl. Only salted meat would have been available, and oatmeal, mixed with a little water and stirred in, was added to the cawl to make it go further. Sometimes cooked oatcakes were crushed and added to a bowl of cawl that had been reheated three or four times, and served at breakfast time. In cold weather cawl would be followed by apple or plain dumplings, made by mixing flour with a spoonful of cawl to make a thick paste. The paste was then spread around an unskinned apple and left to simmer on top of the soup.Davies, G., ‘The Very Best Flavours of Wales, p12, Gomer Press, 1997,
The Marketing and Tourism department of Carmarthenshire County Council has developed a Cawl Crawl, this is a themed route that people can follow and includes establishments in Carmarthenshire that make their own individual variations on the traditional cawl dish.
Fish Carmarthen Bay sweeps from Gower to Tenby and is the delta for the Carmarthenshire rivers which have excellent fishing: the rivers Towy, Teifi, Afon Cothi and Taf. The ancient craft of coracle fishing can still be seen on the river Teifi, especially between Cenarth and Cilgerran, and on the river Towy near Carmarthen.
Sewin is known as the prince of Welsh fish. They feed more locally than salmon and hence are more distinctive from region to region, with a pale, pinky flesh and a high oil content. The season begins around Easter and ends in the summer, with the largest fish having the earliest run up the rivers. Sewin range in size from less than a pound in weight to 3 lbs, known as shiglin (the smallest) and twlpin (the larger) in late July and August, to fully grown fish known as gwencin, which equal a salmon in size and come in May or June (or earlier), and again in September. Large sewin can be distinguished from salmon by the tail: the tail is more deeply indented, the colour is browny-grey instead of blue-grey, and the body is slimmer near the tail. Welsh anglers claim that the Tywi yields more sewin over 10 lbs than every sea-trout river in England and Scotland put together.
Raymond Rees, at Carmarthen Market, has iced fish slabs with fresh fish from the coast and the Towy river. He specialises in sewin. He also has one of the few licenses to fish with a coracle on the Towy. This is the longest river entirely within the county. Sewin has a more delicate flavour than salmon and is best cooked simply: grilled or baked gently with plenty of salty Welsh butter. The butter on the hot flesh brings out the flavour, and the rough texture of locally baked brown bread contrasts well with the smooth flesh of sewin. To tell if a whole sewin is of good flavour, the colour of the flesh should be examined by requesting the fishmonger to make a tiny incision with a knifepoint in the middle of the back of the fish. The flesh should be a clear pink, not a pale or fawny pink, which suggests that the fish has been in the river too long. Big sewin can grow out of their taste and become flavourless, these fish are better stuffed. If a sauce is used, then fennel is the best herb to add, and grows wild along the west coast of Wales; an alternative is a cucumber sauce or samphire which grows on the Loughor estuary.
Sea food