Laver (Wales), Sloke (Ireland)

Family Bangiaceae

REMARKS Laver is a reddish seaweed which has for long been eaten in Britain. Camden’s Britannica refers to it being gathered in Wales, to make ‘a sort of food call’d Lhavan or Lhawvan, in English black butter’. Lily Newton gives a pleasant picture of it being gathered in Pembrokeshire in more recent times.

The pickers stride across the sands at low water, bag or bucket on arm, sack tied behind in a waist belt, and proceed to gather the laver with a quick crisp plucking sound, pleasantly reminiscent of the plucking of grass by cattle when eagerly grazing in a lush meadow. Later, very heavily laden, with a full sack balanced on their shoulders, these women return across the shore, with rosy, wind-tanned, broad faces that give a hint of their Flemish ancestry. (Seaweed Utilisation, 1951.)