Cefn Graeanog
The whole population lives almost entirely on oats and the produce of their herds, milk, butter and cheese. They eat plenty of meat, but little bread.
You must not expect a variety of dishes from a welsh kitchen, and there are no highly seasoned titbits to whet your appetite. In a Welsh house there are no tables, no tablecloths and no napkins. Everyone behaves quite naturally, with no attempt whatsoever at etiquette. You sit down in threes, not in pairs as elsewhere, and they put the food in front of you, all together, on a single large trencher containing enough for three, resting on rushes and green grass. Sometimes they serve the main dish on bread, rolled out large and thin, and baked fresh each day.
Finally the times comes to rest. Alongside one of the walls is placed a communal bed, stuffed with rushes, and not all that many of them. For sole covering there is a stiff harsh sheet, made locally and called in welsh a 'brychan
'. A fire is kept burning all night at their feet, just as it has done all day, and they get some warmth from the people sleeping next to them.
Excerpts from Descriptio Cambriae by Gerald of Wales ( Penguin Classics translation).
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