Home/Ark of Taste
A catalogue of the foods we are in danger of losing, and a plan for bringing them back.
What it is
The Ark of Taste project seeks to preserve the forgotten foods that are in danger of being lost as a result of our fast-paced lives and intensive food production methods. It is a living catalogue, kept by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, of products from all over the world that are worth saving and at genuine risk of disappearing.
Getting a product aboard the Ark is not an academic exercise. It is a way of putting a name to something, telling its story, and pointing people towards the small-scale producers who still make it. By promoting those producers we are able to safeguard traditional Welsh products and return them to the market, which is the only place a food can really survive.
Thirty Welsh products are now included, and more nominations are on their way through.
The Welsh Ark
Every one of these is on the international Ark of Taste register. Here are seven of them up close, with the full Welsh register below.
A hardy hill breed shaped by the valleys and uplands of south Wales. These are sheep bred to thrive on rough mountain grazing that would defeat a lowland animal, and that diet of heather, bilberry and mountain grass is what gives the meat its character. As hill farming has come under pressure, the number of flocks kept to the traditional type has fallen.
Livestock
A fresh, crumbly cow’s milk cheese with deep roots in the mining valleys, where it was carried underground as a day’s food. Industrial block production very nearly finished off the real thing. Farmhouse Caerphilly, made in traditional rounds and given time to mature, develops a soft, mushroomy rind and a creamy edge beneath it that the supermarket version simply does not have.
Dairy
Traced to a single old tree growing against a building on Ynys Enlli, the island off the tip of the Llŷn Peninsula. When the fruit was examined it appeared to match no known variety, which makes this an apple found nowhere else in the world. Grafts have since been taken so the variety is no longer dependent on one tree in an exposed spot in the Irish Sea.
Fruit
An old Welsh hill breed, unmistakable for its markings and known in two forms: Torddu, meaning black belly, and Torwen, meaning white belly. Like the other native mountain breeds it is small, tough and well suited to the Welsh uplands, and like them it has lost ground to faster-growing commercial crosses.
Livestock
A white, lop-eared native breed and one of the rarest pigs in Britain. The Welsh pig fell out of favour when the industry moved to leaner, faster hybrids, but butchers and curers prize it for exactly what the industry rejected: the quality of its fat, and meat that behaves properly when it is cured, air dried or slow cooked.
Livestock
Gathered by hand from the sands of the Burry Inlet on the Gower, by families who have worked the same beds for generations. The work is done on foot, at low tide, with a rake and a sieve, and the knowledge of where the cockles lie is passed down rather than taught. Licensing protects the beds, but the tradition depends on there still being people willing to do it.
Seafood
Grown in and around Denbigh in north Wales and effectively nowhere else, which is unusual enough to have earned it protected status. It ripens late, in September, and the town celebrates it every autumn. A local fruit in the truest sense: tied to one place, with the people of that place keeping it going.
FruitThe full register
Thirty products, from orchard fruit and garden beans to bakestone cakes and honey wine. Each one links to its full entry in the Slow Food Foundation’s international catalogue.
Traced to one old tree on Ynys Enlli that matched no known variety. Grafts now grow safely on the mainland.
Ark entryA late-ripening plum grown in and around Denbigh and almost nowhere else, celebrated by the town every autumn.
Ark entryA small, sharp, dark damson from the cottage gardens around Abergwyngregyn, near Llanfairfechan, once the basis of local jams, chutneys and winter puddings.
Ark entryA tart Cardiff cooking apple that falls to a pale, fluffy purée. Most of the Gabalfa orchards that grew it disappeared under the city’s expansion.
Ark entry“Better than a thousand.” A Monmouthshire apple recorded since the 1700s, good for eating, for open tarts and for rich single-variety cider.
Ark entryFound in 1984 in old gardens above Llanberis. The only culinary pear known to be native to Wales, with pink-tinged flesh and a scent of rosewater.
Ark entryA hard, tannic pear from the old orchards of south-east Wales. No good for eating, but prized for a spicy, aromatic perry.
Ark entryA seed-saved strain selected over generations to crop through west Wales wind and rain. Red flowers, long pods and pink-and-black seeds.
Ark entryPassed from an elderly Cardiff gardener to a district nurse. Lilac flowers, then green pods streaked with navy, eaten young or dried for winter.
Ark entryA tall, sweet podding pea grown on the Llanover Estate near Abergavenny, from seed brought by a German prisoner of war who stayed on after the war.
Ark entryA long, straight, black-seeded runner bean and one of only five runner beans of Welsh origin held by the Heritage Seed Library.
Ark entryA hardy hill breed of the south Wales valleys and uplands, raised on heather, bilberry and mountain grass.
Ark entryAn old hill breed in two forms: Torddu, with a black belly, and Torwen, with a white one.
Ark entryA white, lop-eared pig and one of the rarest in Britain, valued by curers for the quality of its fat.
Ark entryRaked by hand from the sands of the Burry Inlet by families who have worked the same beds for generations.
Ark entryLaver seaweed from the rocky coast, simmered for hours to a near-black purée. Traditionally fried in oatmeal and eaten with bacon and cockles.
Ark entryGrown in the fast tidal channel between Anglesey and the mainland, a fishery that goes back at least to the thirteenth century.
Ark entryThe farmhouse cheese of the mining valleys, made in rounds and given time to develop its soft rind.
Ark entryCheese, leek and breadcrumbs, shaped and fried. A meat-free sausage from the 1800s, first made with the now-lost Glamorgan cheese.
Ark entryA fruited buttermilk batter cooked as one large round on the bakestone, then split and buttered. Linked above all to Llanfachraeth.
Ark entryMashed potato, flour and butter cooked on the griddle. A thrifty way with leftovers, eaten warm with butter.
Ark entryA plain, moist fruit slab cake from Gwynedd and Anglesey, baked in a tray and cut into squares.
Ark entryA spiced fruit cake baked to feed the neighbours who came to help at shearing time.
Ark entryA Pembrokeshire pie of mutton or lamb with currants and sugar, a survivor of the medieval taste for sweet and savoury together.
Ark entryOatmeal soaked and left to sour overnight, then cooked slowly to a soft, tangy porridge that sets as it cools.
Ark entryA breadcrumb custard layered with jam and topped with baked meringue. The homemade version, not the one in the shops.
Ark entryA light steamed suet pudding with dried fruit and lemon, served with lemon sauce in mountain guesthouses since the 1800s.
Ark entryHoney wine made from local honey, sometimes with meadowsweet or elderflower. The feasting drink of the Mabinogion.
Ark entryWelsh honey fermented with fresh apple juice at harvest time, landing somewhere between a mead and a cider.
Ark entryWild rowan berries, bitter when raw, cooked down to a sharp ruby jelly for lamb, game and cheese.
Ark entryMembers fund the work of finding, nominating and championing Welsh foods at risk. From £2.75 a month.
Nominate a product
The Ark grows by nomination, and the nominations come from people who know. Growers, fishers, bakers, butchers, market traders, and people who simply remember something their grandmother made and cannot find any more.
A product belongs on the Ark if it is distinctive in taste, tied to a particular place and its people, made in limited quantities, and at real risk of disappearing. If something you know fits that description, tell us about it.
Get involved
Every member makes the network stronger, and a stronger network means more producers found, more products saved and more people eating well.
