Cuisine of Gower

The cuisine of Gower, a peninsula in south Wales, is based on ingredients grown, raised or collected on or around the peninsula. The cuisine is based on fresh ingredients with recipes based around a fish or meat dish. Until the twentieth century, the peninsula was virtually cut off from other markets due to poor roads, and no rail connection. The result was that Gower became self-sufficient in food.

Gower people also developed their own dialect of English, known as the Gower dialect, and their own traditions, which have since died out. The population of the peninsula was employed in agriculture, fishing, labour on the farms and larger country estates, weaving and, in the north, coal mining and cockling. With the expansion of motorized transport and road improvements, Gower became a popular tourist destination. Many residents now travel from Gower to work in the nearby city of Swansea. Much of the agricultural produce is now sold at Swansea Market, local farmers' markets, and further afield.

In the 18th century, surveys indicate that crops grown in Gower included corn, hay, flax, hemp, hops and fruit. Livestock kept included sheep, cattle, pigs, geese, fowl and bees. Many Gower villages were self-sufficient in food, and residents paid a yearly rent to the lord of the manor for fishing rights. In south and west Gower a feudal or manorial system of open fields, and related areas of common land for the grazing of , had developed after the Norman invasion. The land remained linked to this feudal pattern for many centuries afterwards, and tithes were paid in kind, comprising one lamb out of ten, a tenth of the wool shorn, and a tenth part of the grain crop.

Later, the Enclosure Acts consolidated the arable land holding but Gower’s common lands were left untouched. North and east Gower retained the traditional Welsh landholding pattern, based on a family group and located around the "gwely", or homestead. All rights of grazing, common pasture, and arable allocations stemmed from this system. The Norman and Welsh areas of Gower were roughly divided by the common lands of Clyne, Fairwood, Pengwern and Cefn Bryn.

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