A howling gale greeted our arrival at the annual Gwledd Conwy Feast, and it didn’t stop blowing all weekend. Towering over the proceedings, the splendid thirteenth-century castle served as a reminder that this is a land that required taming.
Even today, the rugged terrain poses challenges. Locals complain that it is quicker to travel to London than Cardiff due to the imposing mountains that provided sanctuary for the Britons from Anglo-Saxon incursions. But of course this harsh natural environment provides some of the finest wild, and semi-wild, food in Britain.
Yet the country has struggled to gain the kind of gastronomic recognition beyond cheese on toast (Welsh rarebit) that its more vociferous Celtic cousins, the Irish and Scots, have managed to acquire.
The Welsh government’s True Taste Awards and events like the Conwy Feast are an attempt to redress this imbalance, and draw attention to the delicious foods that this mountainous and maritime region offers up.
On our first foray into the festival we encountered a stand selling mussels landed from the estuary in front of us. They hold the distinction of being the only British variety not to face the doubtlessly traumatic experience of dredging. Locals still use long-handled rakes invented by medieval monks. A well-travelled journalist of Australian origin reckoned them to be the finest variety he had tasted, enhanced no doubt by the lashings of butter in the Marinière.
Wales possesses vast beds of mussels. The Menai Strait which separates the island of Anglesey from mainland Wales provide more than the whole of Scotland, yet one is far more likely to hear of Scottish varieties such as those from Loch Fyne.
One can hardly write about Welsh food without referring to lamb, the food with which this region is so closely associated. Fresh-faced Myrddin Davies, a native Welsh speaker who works on a 180-acre family-run farm in Nant y Wrach Bach at Llanrwst near Conwy, holds the dubious distinction of being the face of Welsh lamb.
There is nothing sheepish, though, about his defence of the farming methods that see average ratios of one farmer for five hundred lambs compared to their competitors in New Zealand who have a ratio of 1:5000. Consequently, Welsh farmers require European subsidies for survival. In return, they have a duty to protect their natural environment, and provide lambs that are fully traceable. This has gained them recognition as a European PGI (Protected Geographical Indication). Another advantage of Welsh lamb is that the variety of the altitude of the farms extends its seasonality. Lowland varieties are ready for Easter while their mountain cousins reach maturity in early June. Autumn lamb has a similar range.
Mrs Maldwyn Thomas of Aran Lamb was another farmer keen to advocate her meat. Her family farm is a thousand feet about sea level in the Aran mountains, second in height only to the Snowdonia range. This interview was remarkable for the gusts of winds that buffeted us throughout that caused plastic chairs to fly across the street. The conditions barely registered with Mrs Thomas whose hardy mountain lifestyle had clearly inured her to soft lowland breezes. She believes that her True Taste award winning, certified-organic lamb derives its depth of flavour from the herbs and flowers that the animals munch on. Her main concern was how her precious product is often spoilt by overcooking. She insists it ‘needs to be removed from the oven while still pink and left to stand’.
Undoubtedly the belle of the Conwy Feast ball was the Halen Mon sea salt company whose creator David Lea-Wilson is accorded near guru status among chefs. His chiseled features suggest a dedication to his craft, and his eyes light up when talking about this precious ingredient without which eating would be a chore. Words like salad, sauce, salsa, and sausage all derive from salt and where would we be without that lot?
David’s salt making derived from a need to turn a buck while the aquarium that he and his wife operated was not being visited in the winter months. He decided to use the filtered water usually bound for the aquarium to make salt, and to this end he was awarded a Churchill grant to travel the world to study the processes used in other countries. He developed a technique of vacuum boiling the water which creates crystals of overlapping squares, noticeably different from the flakier Maldon sea salt that has become the staple salt in most foodie households.
The difference between his sea salt and common rock salt is that it’s actually only 95% salt, the remainder being a composite of healthy minerals that have bound with the salt, imparting its distinct taste. David argues that the Gulf Stream that passes the Welsh coastline provides a cleaner source of salt than the North Sea setting of his competitors.
He allays concerns about the radioactivity of the Irish Sea by saying that the Gulf Stream flows from south to north so their water is not contaminated by the Sellafield power plant in Cumbria.
Halen Mon comes in varieties combined with different flavourings such as celery seeds and vanilla pods, the latter of which is said to work wonderfully with popcorn.
The Conwy Feast contained a number of other fine producers that confirm that the Welsh gastronomic future is in safe hands. The Snowdonia cheese company are producing cheddars of the most compulsively moreish quality, while the ambitious Patchwork Pâtés company create distinctive pâtés using high quality ingredients that could well take the U.K. by storm with their sophisticated Ben and Jerry-style marketing.
After a day’s tasting foreplay it was about time we retreated from the high winds for a meal of local delights and we were kindly hosted by the True Taste award winning Kinmel Arms, located about 15 miles from Conwy. The affordable menu (mains around the £20 mark) contains a wide array of indigenous specialties. I chose pigeon to start and a monkfish main and was not disappointed. The wine list was very impressive, containing a fresh-tasting, though slightly attenuated, Merlot produced, appropriately, by a Welsh community from the Patagonia region of Argentina, and to my delight a Hungarian Tokaji to accompany my sticky toffee pudding.
Events such as the Conwy Feast provide an excellent showcase for an emerging Welsh food consciousness, and the changeable weather and credit crunching, did not deter a good crowd from assembling. It was heartening to see that those in attendance were from all walks of life, and the lilting sounds of Welsh reminded us of the country’s distinct character.
Note: For further details on the producers at this year's Gwledd Conwy Feast visit http://www.conwyfeast.co.uk/. For further information on True Taste Award-winning producers visit www.truetaste.tv. The Kinmel Arms, Tel 01745 832 207, http://www.thekinmelarms.co.uk/.
Images courtesy of Kiran Ridley.
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