If you've ever stepped foot in County Waterford, you'll know what a floury 'blaa' is. Now witness "Blaa-Mageddon"!
The 'blaa', a beloved doughy and soft white bread bun, is a veritable county-wide treasure in Waterford. The blaa is most often filled with lashings of butter and thin-sliced ham, or even better: salt-and-vinegar laden chunky fries from the local chipper.
Read More: How blaa bread, an adaption of French refugee bread, became an Irish specialty
The humble yet omnipresent blaa was celebrated at 'Blaa-Mageddon' yesterday - an organized flour fight and the largest event of its kind in Ireland.
The family event was hosted as part of the 10-day Imagine Arts Festival in Waterford.
Children and adults of all ages dressed in 'war' costume, acting as rival clans who were jousting to claim the popular bread as their own.
While the blaa is most often associated with Waterford, it is also popular in Kilkenny and Wexford.
Its current format is an adapted version of bread baked by the French Huguenots when they settled in Ireland. It is claimed that blaas were introduced to Waterford at the end of the 17th-century and that the word blaa is derived from "blanc", the French word for white, however, this theory is disputed.
Waterford people are so obsessed with their favorite bread that in 2013, the blaa was awarded Protected Geographical Indication status by the European Commission: this means that only a blaa actually made in Waterford can be called a blaa.
Read More: Brown bread as your mother made it
