Roast lamb with laver sauce is a recipe associated with Wales and Welsh cuisine.
Lamb and mutton dishes are widespread and common in all the old counties of Wales and have long been traditional, with all regions having their own variations and contribution, let alone the various sheep breeds, to make to a lamb dish worthy of being the national dish.
Mountain lamb is sweet,
Valley lamb is fatter,
I therefore deemed it meet
To carry off the latter!
(Traditional Welsh ditty).
The meal is a contender for the national dish of Wales, and has a long tradition and historical provenence. "A capital dinner! You don't get moor mutton with laver sauce every day!" (Collins 1875). The dish was eaten by George Borrow and is worthy of a mention in Wild Wales in 1856.
Salt marsh lamb from the River Towy is also popular in South Wales.
Famous quotes containing the words roast, lamb and/or sauce:
“Oh the roast beef of England,
And old England’s roast beef!”
—Henry Fielding (1707–1754)
“Our kinsman Gloucester is as innocent
From meaning treason to our royal person
As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“They played the eloquent tum-tum,
And lived on scalps served up in rum—
The only sauce they knew.”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)