page_title: Cuisine of Pembrokeshire
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Cuisine of Pembrokeshire / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Bed and breakfast in the Iron Age One of the Castell Henllys round houses includes these 'bed-chambers' curtained-off for the privacy, one imagines, of superior members of the clan. Vegetable dyes were used to colour the woven woollen material. The fire would have been used for cooking and for warmth on this carved log seating, and the smoke would permeate through the thatched roof rather than escaping through a hole since introducing oxygen would be a fire risk.
context_page_description: Pembrokeshire has been called "the cottage garden of Wales", due to its good soil and the beneficial effects of the Gulf Stream, which provide a mild climate and a longer growing season than other parts of the country.
  The good climate and soil meant that the south of the peninsula was coveted by the Norsemen and Normans because it had "great plentie" of corn and cattle The county has prime agricultural land, much of which is located at about 70m above sea level, while to the north, the Preseli Hills rise to 500m above sea level and form uplands that are made up of heather and bracken, which are used for grazing sheep.
  Consequently, Pembrokeshire is classed as one of the most fertile counties in Wales, with its 392,300 agricultural acres having 14% of its land classed as of good quality, 67% being classed as medium quality and 19% being classed as poor quality. However, agricultural production is subject to market forces and in the 1890s, as a result of the Panic of 1893, a deep agricultural depression led to the area under cultivation falling by a third. Many labourers and farmers had no option but to emigrate to the New World and many of the large farming estates were sold.
context_section_description: Country house cuisine has been recorded in a number of historical recipe books from the county. Anne Phelps of Withybush House, Haverfordwest (now demolished), compiled a recipe book in about 1770. Recipes include Haricot Mutton, Green Pea Soup and Baked Beef.
  An eighteenth century cook book associated with Slebech Hall (also demolished) includes recipes such as Cream Pancakes, Baked Herrings, Mr Anson's Pudding (Mr Anson was related to the owners of Slebech and later became Earl of Lichfield), Lemon Sponge, Boodle Club Cake (associated with Boodle's, London) and Amber Pudding.
  A recipe book from Stackpole Court (also demolished, although the Stackpole Estate remains) includes recipes such as The Duke of Marlborough's White Fish Sauce, Doctor Oliver's Biscuits, A recipe for currie, A patty, British champagne (made from gooseberries) and Duke of Norfolk's Punch (drink).
  In 2009, the actress and television presenter Jenny Kenna published "Susan's Secrets, A Victorian Kitchen in Wales". Her great grandmother, Susan Elizabeth Webb, was a cook who started work at age fifteen in Victorian era Pembrokeshire and kept a notebook of recipes popular at that time. The book also sets out her grandmother's story.
  The Withybush, Slebech and Stackpole cook books are held by Pembrokeshire Records Office. "Traditional Food From Wales", a book on Welsh cuisine by Bobby Freeman (writer and cook), contains the recipes mentioned above. Freeman, originally from England, ran a "pioneering Fishguard restaurant" in the 1960s which specialised in Welsh cuisine and she went on to write numerous books on Welsh cookery.
  According to Freeman, all the hand written recipe collections compiled in Welsh country houses in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries "are no different from their counterparts compiled in English mansions and do not contain a single reference to traditional Welsh dishes or methods of cooking". This led to Freeman's "long search to authenticate Welsh cookery" much of which was passed orally from mother to daughter". According to Freeman, the first record of Welsh cuisine, since the Laws of Hywel Dda and the poets of Medieval Welsh literature, was written down in the prize winning Eisteddfod entry of Mati Thomas, in 1928. Freeman arranged for the translation of this work, which is a unique collection of very old Welsh recipes collected from the memories of Welsh cooks while they were still alive to recall them.
caption: Castell Henllys, a reconstruction of an Iron Age Celtic roundhouse showing the hearth and a cooking pot (photo by Ceridwen).
exif: {}