Welsh Foods

In Anglesey, these loaves were traditionally baked singly on a bakestone, but were covered with an inverted cast-iron pan.  Using gorse or straw as fuel, the fire was lit in a sheltered position outside the house or on the hearth in the kitchen.  The bakestone would rest on a tripod stand over the fire and the inverted pan would be covered with glowing embers so that the loaf would be completely enclosed in heat.  Pobi yn y baw (baking in dirt) was the local idiom used to describe this particular method of baking in this part of Wales.  Barley bread was baked in the same way on the Llŷn Peninsula, but the fuel varied according to what was available, e.g. chaff, gorse or charred furze.  The loaves were named torth padell a gradell (griddle and pan loaf) or torth dan badell (loaf under a pan).  In other areas where peat was the main source of fuel, bread was similarly baked in a pot oven, glowing embers being placed on the lid of the pot as well as beneath it.  In this instance the loaf would adopt the Welsh name given to the pot in respective areas, e.g. torth ffwrn fach, torth getel, torth grochan or it would refer to the fuel used for baking it – e.g. bara twarch a mate (Pembrokeshire).