Celtic Cuisine

Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description

Casgliad o ryseitiau Celtaidd o Gymru, Iwerddon, Yr Alban, Llydaw, Ynys Manaw, Cernyw a Galisia yn cynnwys seigiau traddodiadol a wreiddiwyd yn y gorffennol ynghyd â seigiau'n cynrychioli coginio cyfoes ar ei orau.

Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description

This collection of Celtic recipes from Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, the Isle of Man, Cornwall and Galicia covers a range of traditional dishes rooted in the Celtic past together with others that are at the forefront of modern cooking. Recipes include: Boxty Potato Pancakes, Cranachan, Haggis, Roast Lamb, Welsh Rarebit, Saffron Cake, Isle of Man Queenies and Poulet au Cidres.

Dosbarthu

Byddwn yn dosbarthu eitemau sydd mewn stoc o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith, fel arfer drwy Royal Mail Tracked 48. Ar gyfer archebion o flaen llaw, byddwn yn dosbarthu’r eitem o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith ar ôl ei derbyn gan ein cyflenwr.

Dispatch

In-stock items will be dispatched within 3 business days, usually by Royal Mail Tracked 48. For pre-orders, we’ll dispatch within 3 business days of receiving the item from our supplier.

Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography

Gilli Davies is a food writer and Cordon Bleu chef from Wales. As an author, Gilli has written a total of twelve books on the food of Wales, Cyprus and organic produce and has been involved with food, food journalism and broadcasting since about 1980. In 2011 Graffeg published Gilli’s Flavours of Wales recipe book, ideal for those who enjoy simple home-cooked dishes and flavours. Flavours of Wales is also available as a small pocket guide, part of the Pocket Wales collection, and full recipes are included on the Flavours of Wales notecards. The Flavours of Wales Collection cookbook was published in October 2015, followed by a series of compact Flavours of Wales titles covering baking, cheese, seasalt, seaweed, Welsh lamb and Welsh cakes during 2016 and 2017. Gilli went on to publish 12 Flavours of England cookbooks through 2019 and 2020, celebrating the best of English cuisine, including the classic English breakfast, pies and pasties, afternoon tea and vegetarian dishes.

Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

Which is your favourite cuisine? French? Italian? Indian? Chinese? Or perhaps Mexican, Thai, or Japanese? Caribbean or Korean? Or are you more a tapas or mezze type person indulging in the occasional tagine? We really are spoilt for choice, aren’t we? But what about closer to home? Welsh cuisine. Is that a thing? And what about our neighbours in the Celtic nations of Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall and Brittany, not to mention Galicia? Isn’t that just oats, potatoes and buttermilk? Or at best, broths and stews like Cawl/Lobsgows and Irish Stew, disconcerting concoctions of offal such as Haggis and Faggots, and different variations of fruit loaf (Bara Brith, Barm Brack, and Saffron Cake). Brittany has its crêpes, but who knows what Galicia has to offer? Do they all really constitute a coherent ‘cuisine’? This short collection of 33 recipes from Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Cornwall, Brittany, and Galicia will guide the curious dinner-table traveller along the Atlantic seaboard from the Outer Hebrides down to Santiago de Compostela. The recipes are grouped by nation, introduced by evocative photography, and each one gets five or six recipes each, apart from the Isle of Man and Galicia who have to make do with three each. Inspiring photographs also accompany many of the recipes. There is a mixture of sweet and savoury dishes, more than half vegetarian (mainly the cakes and pastries), and only six with fish. Some might find this odd considering how much coast the Celtic nations have between them, but those of us living on this periphery (at least on the British and Irish littorals) know how little seafood is eaten on a daily basis. Galicia, however, is renowned for its seafood, especially octopus and goose barnacles, but these are not as easy to source further north as the tinned tuna required for the Empanada Gallega. As the introduction makes clear, we Celts have some fine ingredients to work with. A temperate climate with plentiful rain makes for good pasture, and so good meat and dairy produce. But only certain grains such as oats, barley and buckwheat would traditionally be able to survive the weather. Potatoes thrive, as do cabbage, root vegetables, apples, stone-fruit and berries. Along with the use of fish, seafood and sea vegetables, the similarities between the common ingredients of the dishes of the various nations make sense. There is also a commonality in the way food is prepared. Everything boiled in one pot to make Cawl, Irish Stew, the Galician Caldo Gallego or the Breton fish stew, Cotriade. Or, perhaps more rarely now, cooked on a griddle, as are Welsh Cakes, Irish Boxty Potato Pancakes, the Manx fruit cake, Bonnag, and Breton crêpes and galettes. Although the emphasis is on the traditional, iconic foods of each nation, such as the simple Manx ‘Herrings, Potatoes and Onions’, some of them are more modern reinterpretations, like the Scottish Casserole of Scottish Wild Venison in Red Wine. It was heartening to see some popular everyday recipes, e.g. Mince and Tatties with Skirlie from Scotland – a dish, according to the respondents of one survey, eaten by a third of Scots once a week in 2009. My taste buds were also drawn to the more exotic-sounding recipes, including the spicy, honey-based Pain d’Épices from Brittany and the moreish Empanada Gallega from Galicia, which I served Cornish pasty-style for a more portable and arguably doubly Celtic snack. With the nights drawing in, what better way to travel than by gathering around the dinner table to feast on some of these comforting dishes?