Blaa

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
A blaa /blæ/ is a doughy, white bread bun (roll) speciality; particularly associated with Waterford, Ireland... 12,000 blaas are sold each day.  
There are four bakeries making blaas, two of them in Waterford city – Hickey’s Bakery, and M & D Bakery. The Waterford blaa has been around three hundred years, since the Huguenot settlers introduced this simple bread to the locals. Never cut a blaa with a knife! It has to be torn apart by hand and eaten with butter or any filling of your choice, like rashers or chicken filet.
A student who preferred to stay anonymous, kindly gave me permission to take a picture of his blaa and rashers.
blaa
Blaa has a very special place in the heart of  Waterford people.
The graffiti in my opening photograph is not a blaa advertisement though. The other side of the river Suir in Waterford – Ferrybank – mostly belongs to County Kilkenny, and traditionally, some Kilkenny people risking their lives leave teasing graffiti on The Flour Mills or on the high vertical cliff behind the railway station to annoy  Waterford folks.
The Flour Mills, as they look in my photograph from 2015, don’t exist anymore. This summer the grain silos were taken down first, and the derelict buildings followed.

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There are a few more photographs of the Mills taken in November 2015.

waterford mills

waterford mills

waterford mills

waterford mills

waterford mills

Tall Ship Festival 2005. Russian four-masted barque Kruzenshtern with the Flour Mills in background. Happy days.

kruzenshtern

The Mills were always there, ruining pictures 🙂

tall ships 2005

waterford

The nine storey building constructed in 1905 and listed in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage as ‘an imposing building of national importance’, has been preserved.

demolition

The rest of the mill will have to go.

demolition

There is another ghost on the other side of the river in Waterford City –  the Ferrybank Shopping Centre on Kilkenny/Waterford border, that was completed in 2008 and has never opened. Its cost is € 100M.

ferrybank

And one more ghost is hidden behind the Joe Caslin’s mental health artwork – abandoned Ard Rí hotel.

waterford walls

Ta-da! This picture was taken in 2005 with Ard Rí already abandoned five years prior.

tall ships 2005

But the ghosts are not easy to rid off. Especially in the internet. There still is a booking page for Ard Rí! 🙂

Hope this beautiful Sumac that grows in Ferrybank brightens the story of this less fortunate suburb of Waterford city.

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And here is my latest picture of Ferrybank on the other side of the river Suir – with the Supermoon shining through the clouds 🙂 I didn’t have enough enthusiasm to camp by the river and wait for the clouds to clear away.

supermoon

Thank you for walking around Ferrybank with me! I link this post to Milford Street , Equinoxio  and Geezer 94 – the blogs that are often showcasing history and old buildings. Please visit and follow.

inesemjphotographyHave a wonderful weekend!

128 comments

  1. On a heretical note the blaa bears an uncanny resemblance to the ‘Hawick roll’ from the Scottish borders. I like the west- coast black topped ones of my childhood.

  7. Well, a blah on the tearing down of that which once created Blaa!
    Thank you for this interesting look at the past & progress… which may not be humanistic progress, but stock market progress.
    Inese, I’m not sure what to say, but i raise my simple Canadian grilled cheese sandwich to you, and Waterford!

    1. Resa, your grilled cheese sandwich is perfect, and I am really happy that each place has their own food which adds a lot to the pleasures of travels.

      1. It’s a golfing trip–everything planned for us, but I might need advice on clothing to bring and foods to try (or avoid). We still don’t have firm dates.

  9. Someday I’ll have to try a blaa. Interesting word. And thanks for the photo of the supermoon, Inese. It really must be seen in context to get an idea of the size, so that was wonderful!

    1. Thank you so much, Diana! The moon was at her best shortly after 5pm, but I came home much later, and missed a lot 🙂 I haven’t noticed a big difference in size, but the brightness was remarkable. Unfortunately the moon was in the clouds most of the time, and I simply enjoyed the view without taking photographs.
      EU protected the ‘blaa’ word by law 🙂 If you decide to bake the same bun, say, in Dublin, you have no rights to call it blaa.

  10. I am learning about “Blaa”. From the look of it, it looks like sour dough bun. Blaa and the rashers look so good. If I have an opportunity to visit Ireland next time, I will try to look for one. I hope they are not hard to find.

    I am fascinated by those old time sea travel ships as these. Are they still operational? If they are still in used. What kind of purposed are they serving today?

    1. Thank you for stopping by! Blaas are baked only in Waterford, so it is where you have to go to try them 🙂
      I have attended two Tall Ship festivals in Waterford – in 2005 and 2011. I think the next one is in 2018, but I might be wrong. In 2005, more than 100 ships came to Waterford from around the world. The purpose of them depends on the ownership – it could be leisure and travel, or they can be used for training. Many of them have been filmed in various movies.

  11. One of the things I love the most is either bread and butter
    Or honey,butter,and bread
    I just started eating tomato sandwiches there great too
    Sheldon

  13. What happens to folks who use a knife to cut into their blaas? We didn’t get to see the super moon – fog – your glimpse of it is lovely.

    1. Nothing will happen, but it will be considered ignorant here in Waterford :). Blaa has been granted a EU protection status which means that it can only be baked in Waterford. If you bake it anywhere else, it cannot be called a blaa 🙂
      I went to see the Moon a bit too late – at 7pm. They say at 5Pm it came out of the clouds for several minutes. The quay was lined with photographers 🙂

  14. Love supermoon photo, Ines.

    I am saddened by the torn down buildings and the loss of jobs. I hope there can be a revival in the area.

    1. Thank you so much for stopping by! Hotel will go next year, after the Mills. The shopping centre has an anchor tenant – Dunnes Stores, who already lost 20M to the developer in court, but still have no money to launch the mall.

  16. Blaa! Or perhaps ‘blah’ my accursed internet is denying me some of the photographs…so much for the high speed internet I pay a King’s ransom for! That said, a fine, fine read. I shall revisit come morn.

    1. Ah, dang it, may be you just have to reload the page.
      The blaa is a Waterford thing. There are two kinds of them – with a soft and a crunchy crust. The one in the picture is the soft variety. They say that the name derives from a french word for white bread.

      1. French white bread is the only white bread worth eating. Fresh in the morning, dry thereafter as quality bread should be! As to my internet ‘reload/refresh’ does nothing…we’re paying a small fortune for a rubbish service. Will, as promised check out in the AM.

          1. Today I get to see your super photographs…at last. By way of a coincidence and if I’m not mistaken that Russian tall ship is the self-same one I took a snap of in Folkestone Harbour two summers ago! Plainly, my snap not as good as your photographs!

            1. Russia has two tall ships – the black four-masted barque is Kruzenshtern (former Padua) they got after annexation of some parts of the East Prussia in 1946. The other one is white STS Mir, a smaller, three-masted ship built in the 1980s. I will put up a blog about tall ships this winter, long due 🙂

          2. Good point and you are 100% correct. Sugars and other unmentionables preserve this stuff we call ‘bread’ in this here island. ‘Bread’ that stays ‘fresh’ for days on end. Then we wonder why our rate of type 2 diabetes is ever going up.

              1. Since I gave up rubbish food and took up serious exercise I have been out of the diabetic zone for 5 years. The plus is also that proper food works out cost efficient…if only people cooked and gave up takeaways!

  17. I never thought the word blaa would get me excited, but that bread looks delicious! I enjoyed the rest of the tour…especially the Super Moon shot…fantastic.

    1. Thank you so much, I am a fan of blaas. The Moon didn’t come out well, because it was behind the clouds, so I decided to include other objects in the picture 🙂

  18. I very much enjoyed this stroll around Ferrybank, Inese. Interesting story about the blaa and the mill; and the economy of the area is sobering. I really liked all of your photos, as I always do.

    1. Thank you so much! That blaa graffiti made me smile when it appeared last year. Some day I will take a picture of the vertical cliff, another place for the teasing messages, that is really dangerous, and not fun at all. These messages appear year after year, and regardless of the police efforts no one knows who does it.

    1. Thank you for joining me Christy 🙂 It was quite a walk indeed. Most of the pictures are taken last fall. I left my car with mechanics and declined the offer to take me home because I didn’t realise how far it actually was. Good that I always have my camera with me.
      Have a lovely weekend! xx

  20. Haha, right away you had me hankering for bread. I do love bread too much… I hope you are feeling well now — happy and sassy.
    Such contrasts in this post, Inese. The bleak mill buildings (OMG it was huge) and the beautiful ships. I especially like the last photo, Super Moon shining through the clouds, the lovely boat and reflection, the lights. It makes it seem a magical evening. I enjoyed this stroll. Mega hugs.

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