Seaweed not see bread

I was recently in the UK again, this time it was a birthday party for the boy's sister's 30th. It was, as always with the boy's family, a very fun, elaborate affair involving cameras, pirates and the rain. Oh, the last bit was about Wales and not the party. The sun we ordered for the weekend didn't arrive on time.


In any case, upon arriving, we were taken to a pub lunch at what I thought was a pub named Earthlings, but turned out to be Farthings written all fancy and scroll like. It was in a village charmingly named Usk. After saying the name of the village a number of times, much to the annoyance of everyone around me, I finally settled down to read the unpronounceable Welsh menu. I was quite interested to see something I hadn't tried before:

See, doesn't that sound interesting? The boy's father, who is quite adventurous with his food (even though he said durian tasted like custard vomit), said that the shellfish around dere dem parts is mighty fine (well, he didn't say it with a Southern farmer's accent but it sounds funnier, no?).

I'm not sure who they think they are fooling with this "laverbread" stuff but it ain't NOTHING like bread. It's actually seaweed. Why they can't just say seaweed, I have no idea.

This what it looked like:

It tasted quite similar to how it looked as well, with some bacon and slightly slimy seaweed and rubbery cockles, it actually tasted a little bit like one of the soups my mother used to make with seaweed and rubbery dried squid. It was fed to us under the extortion "its good for you" but no one ever liked it.

It was interesting but I don't think I'd try it again. Neither will I try pickled cockles, which I also picked up on this trip, which tasted like little rubbery, slightly vinegary nothings.

I think I'll just have to stick to what the Welsh do best. Lamb... mmmnn, tender meat o' baby lambies....YUM!