Cawl Cennin

A lump of salt bacon

Potatoes

Carrots

Leeks

Parsley

Cabbage

Oatmeal and water

Place the bacon in boiling water and with it the root vegetables, cut up small. Boil for about 1½ hours. Remove the bacon and add the leeks, together with some finely shredded white cabbage. When those two vegetables are cooked, add a tablespoonful of chopped parsley and serve. The cawl can be thickened by adding two tablespoonfuls of oatmeal mixed into a paste with cold water. This could be added at the same time as the leeks. In the old days this made a two-course meal - the cawl itself was the first and the meat and vegetables the second course. Any cawl left over was reheated and drunk for breakfast the next day and was known as "cawl ail-dwyn."