The landscape of Pembrokeshire and the Gower is dominated by its striking coast, a scalloped edge of sloping sandy beaches interspersed with domineering, striated cliff faces shaped by millennia of waves. It’s perhaps no surprise then that the region’s cuisine is shaped by the sea, intertwined with the bounty of the tides. Many of the foods associated with the region are found close to the shore, more foraged than fished.

The most famous of these is laverbread, a purée made from laver seaweed. The seaweed is painstakingly soaked, boiled and mashed until smooth, and has been eaten in the region for hundreds of years. References to it date back as far as the twelfth century. It was referred to historically by English visitors to the region as ‘black butter’, and more lovingly by Richard Burton as ‘Welsh caviar’.

Another quintessential food of South Wales, also gathered from the beaches and often served alongside laverbread, is cockles. Although Penclawdd cockles are the most famous, mud-filled and pockmarked cockle beds can be found up and down the Welsh coast. Cockling was historically almost exclusively carried out by women, often dressed in traditional Welsh clothing. Their colourful presence across towns and markets in the region well into the 1960s has made them an emblematic figure of the region and its food.

But, while the image of women dressed in black and red striped dresses wrapped in shawls gathering cockles is very picturesque, cockling was a far from idyllic existence. Cocklewomen were generally armed with little more than a rake to churn up the thick, muddy sand, a sieve to sort the cockles from the gloop, and perhaps a donkey to drag the rake around. It would take hours of work bent over the mud, and a great deal of skill, to be able to find enough shells hidden beneath the sand to make a living.

However, while the sight of cocklewomen with baskets strapped to their backs or carried on their heads might be a thing of the past, the love of foraging and traditional foods in Southwest Wales is only getting stronger. Over the last fifteen years or so the region has seen a resurgence of interest in cockles and laverbread, as well as foods foraged inland like three-cornered leek. And although many in Southwest Wales are passionate about preserving old traditions, they are by no means limited by them.

Chefs, farmers and foragers are constantly finding new uses for ancient ingredients. Hywel Griffith, chef director of Michelin-starred Beach House developed his signature ‘laverbread bread’ to ease customers from outside the region into eating laverbread. Hywel explained that he knew laverbread might be intimidating to those not from the region. ‘It was mostly the older generation that ate it’, he explains, due to its decidedly seaweedy flavour, and unapologetically slippery texture. Hywel’s ‘laverbread bread’ is inspired by the traditional way Welsh miners enjoyed the seaweed. The miners needed something nutritious, affordable and easy to eat in the dark, soot-filled tunnels they were working in. The solution was patties of oats and laverbread fried up until crisp; the Welsh equivalent of a Cornish pasty. Hywel developed a recipe for a baguette, shot through with a vein of mossy green laverbread, and then rolled in oats. It’s a nod to the region’s history, but not an obsession with it.

The team behind the seaweed farm Câr Y Môr on the other hand are focused on using Wales’ laver-loving heritage, and kelp-rich oceans, to sequester carbon and re-establish underwater kelp forests that are being lost around the UK. They sell dried sugar kelp, kombu, and dulse as well as tapenade, furikake, dukkah and granola all seasoned with umami-rich kelp.

And while some producers and chefs are working hard to find new uses for traditional ingredients, others are combining old dishes with new ingredients. MamGu Welshcakes (MamGu meaning grandmother) can be found at their café in Solva, a small boat-speckled village tucked into an inlet off the coast. They sell Welsh cakes made with jalapeño, coffee or chilli as well as the traditional raisin variety. One of their best-sellers is savoury leek and cheese Welsh cakes, which can be enjoyed with chutney.

If reading about kelp, laverbread and cockles has made you want to learn more about foraging for your own food, you’re in luck. There are a huge number of different foraging courses available across the region. Although they are mostly - understandably - focused on coastal foraging, there are a few which will provide an introduction to hedgerow foraging as well. Visit Pembrokeshire has a useful guide to all the different foragers working in the region, including Matt Powell who trained as a fine dining chef before turning to foraging. Matt now offers foraging courses, as well as private dinners made with foraged ingredients. Craig Evans (who runs the website and YouTube channel Coastal Foraging) focuses exclusively on seafood and seaweeds, showing those on his courses where to find oysters, spider crabs and more.

The Really Wild Emporium in St. David’s meanwhile, offers a mixture of foraging classes and wild ingredient-based meals. Julia, one of the founders of the Really Wild Emporium, learnt foraging from her father, and explained to me how the mildness of the region’s climate - and its bounty of different seaweeds - means that there’s always plenty to forage year-round. After running the Really Wild Festival for almost 15 years, she opened up the Really Wild Emporium, which offers both extravagant tasting menus full of foraged ingredients, as well as homemade herbal teas made with nettles and wild rose. It’s a great stop for anyone interested in learning more about both the region and its native plants.